SINTER3D: continuous 3D reconstruction of spatial transcriptomics via implicit neural representations
Spatial transcriptomics enables gene-expression profiling while preserving spatial context, but three-dimensional reconstruction from discrete tissue sections remains limited by large inter-section gaps and gene-wise independent interpolation. We develop SINTER3D, an implicit neural representation-based framework for joint three-dimensional interpolation of multiple genes. SINTER3D models gene expression as continuous functions of three-dimensional coordinates, enabling virtual section generation, spatial-domain identification, and cell-type deconvolution. Across datasets including adult mouse brain, human dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, developing human heart, Drosophila embryo, and breast cancer tissues, SINTER3D outperforms existing methods and reconstructs biologically meaningful three-dimensional molecular structures.
Authors
- Zhongqian Zhao
- Ruihan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4169-4673)
- Jianyi Lyu
- S Li
- Hailong Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8951-7094)
- Tianjiao Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5734-1880)
- Rongxian Wang
- Yucai Jiang
- Guohua Wang
- Ruolan Zhang
- Xiaopeng Teng
- Long Wan
Institutions
- Harbin Institute of Technology (CN)
- Northeast Forestry University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Genome biology
- Published
- 2026-06-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-026-04160-5
- Primary Topic
- Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China