Minnesota Tissue Mapping Center for Senescent Cells

Project Summary 2024: Benchmarking Project The SenNet consortium is working together to develop and apply multiple spatial imaging technologies to investigate the molecular and cellular heterogeneity of cellular senescence in aged tissues. However, one major obstacle faced by the consortium is the uncertainty surrounding the ability of the various technologies being employed to robustly characterize senescent cells in different tissues. To address this challenge, the SenNet consortium will undertake a collaborative effort to test the effectiveness of various spatial omics technologies on the same human tissue across different sites, as well as to test their effectiveness across different tissues. This endeavor aims to accomplish several goals: firstly, to determine the robustness of senescence-associated marker detection based on the platform, secondly, to extract diverse information about senescence from the same tissue. This consortium-wide benchmarking project will focus on spatial omics techniques that offer single- cell resolution. This approach is based on the current understanding that senescent cells are present in relatively low abundance in aged tissues and the need to use technologies that can accurately detect individual senescent cells and differentiate them from surrounding cells. By rigorously testing the robustness of high-plex technologies already in use within the SenNet Consortium across multiple sites and tissues, we will determine which techniques are most accurate and informative in detecting senescent cells in different tissues.