Insights into highly multiplexed tissue images: A primer for Mass Cytometry Imaging data analysis

Highly multiplexed tissue imaging is promising in human health and disease investigation for the characterization ability of molecular features and tissue context. Mass-based multiplexing imaging technologies— “Mass Cytometry Imaging” (MCI) have been developing rapidly in recent years, which include Imaging Mass Cytometry (IMC) and Multiplexed Ion Beam Imaging (MIBI). MCI can provide tissue images of more than 100 theoretical channels in single-cell resolution, researches based on these are data-driven because of the comprehensive information they provided. Here, we review the development and workflow of MCI, show a complete MCI data analysis workflow with a detailed introduction on each step, summarize the advanced bioinformatics tools and prospect the future direction of analytical strategies and technology application.