SpaceA maps long-range DNA contacts while retaining tissue locations

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed SpaceA, a method that maps long-range contacts between folded DNA regions while preserving cells' locations within tissue sections. The study appears in Developmental Cell. SpaceA combines tiny fluid channels that assign location identifiers with contact detection that does not require physically joining DNA fragments. Existing spatial methods preferentially detect shorter contacts within 10 megabases, while single-cell methods lose tissue positions. The team applied SpaceA to nine mouse embryo sections across four developmental stages, generating approximately 4 TB of deeply sequenced data. The demonstration examined embryonic development, including a distinct pattern of DNA organization in liver cells.