mxDVP identifies over 6,000 proteins from as few as 100 small islet cells and resolves twelve endocrine subtypes in human pancreatic islets
The authors developed multiplexed Deep Visual Proteomics (mxDVP), an end-to-end workflow combining high-plex imaging, automated computational analysis, and spatially guided ultra-sensitive mass spectrometry, powered by the open-source image analysis framework PIPΣX for whole-slide membrane-aware segmentation, annotation, and laser microdissection export, achieving more than 6,000 protein identifications from as few as 100 small islet cells; applied to human pancreatic islets it segmented over 860,000 cells and resolved twelve endocrine subtypes, including rare polyhormonal and intermediate-state populations showing spatial organization patterns, co-expression of INSM1 and SCG3, and hybrid α/β/δ signatures.