cytomapper: An R/Bioconductor package for visualization of highly multiplexed imaging data

Abstract

Highly multiplexed imaging technologies enable spatial profiling of dozens of biomarkers in situ. Here, we describe cytomapper, a computational tool written in R, that enables visualization of pixel- and cell-level information obtained by multiplexed imaging. To illustrate its utility, we analysed 100 images obtained by imaging mass cytometry from a cohort of type 1 diabetes patients. In addition, cytomapper includes a Shiny application that allows hierarchical gating of cells based on marker expression and visualization of selected cells in corresponding images.