Topology across scales on heterogeneous cell data

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Maria Torras-Pérez - , University of Oxford (Author)
  • Iris H.R. Yoon - , Swarthmore College (Author)
  • Praveen Weeratunga - , University of Colombo, University of Oxford (Author)
  • Ling Pei Ho - , University of Oxford (Author)
  • Helen M. Byrne - , University of Oxford (Author)
  • Ulrike Tillmann - , University of Oxford, University of Cambridge (Author)
  • Heather A. Harrington - , University of Oxford, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Center for Systems Biology Dresden (CSBD), TUD Dresden University of Technology, Clusters of Excellence PoL: Physics of Life (Author)

Abstract

Multiplexed imaging allows multiple cell types to be simultaneously visualised in a single tissue sample, generating unprecedented amounts of spatially-resolved, biological data. In topological data analysis, persistent homology provides multiscale descriptors of "shape" suitable for the analysis of such spatial data. Here we propose a novel visualisation of persistent homology (PH) and fine-tune vectorisations thereof (exploring the effect of different weightings for persistence images, a prominent vectorisation of PH). These approaches offer new biological interpretations and promising avenues for improving the analysis of complex spatial biological data especially in multiple cell type data. To illustrate our methods, we apply them to a lung data set from fatal cases of COVID-19 and a data set from lupus murine spleen.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere1013460
JournalPLOS computational biology
Volume21
Issue number10
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 41091735