Welcome to The Readout! Each quarter, we share a selection of highlights, updates, and resources for innovative investigators like you. Let’s jump right in — and happy reading.

Research & community insights

Publication highlight: Spatial gene expression analysis reveals drivers of extremely early lymph node metastasis in breast cancer

In a recent publication, Nagasawa et al. utilized the Xenium platform to investigate the earliest stages of lymph node metastasis in breast cancer. The authors captured a very rare biological event: only 30 isolated tumor cells were detected in a lymph node that was clinically considered metastasis-negative. This provided a unique opportunity to study the first steps of metastatic seeding.

Key findings

• Xenium In Situ enabled the detection and spatial characterization of rare early metastatic tumor cells, linking tumor cell plasticity, metabolic adaptation, and the lymph node microenvironment to breast cancer progression.
• Six distinct tumor cell states were identified along the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) spectrum, highlighting the plasticity of early metastatic cells.
• Successful lymph node colonization was associated not simply with EMT, but with metabolic adaptation — particularly a shift toward fatty acid and lipid metabolism.
• Poor prognosis was linked to specific hybrid epithelial–mesenchymal tumor cell states characterized by aggressive transcriptional programs, including proliferation, glycolysis, MYC, and cell-cycle signatures.

Nagasawa, et al. (2026). Spatial gene expression analysis reveals drivers of extremely early lymph node metastasis in breast cancer. npj Breast Cancer, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41523-026-00897-1

Find more publications by our technology users here and stay at the forefront of spatial and single cell research.

What's new?

Meet Atera

On April 18, at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, we announced the arrival of Atera, our new spatial transcriptomics platform designed to eliminate longstanding trade-offs in spatial biology. Atera delivers whole-transcriptome profiling (>18,000 protein-coding genes) at single cell sensitivity and unprecedented throughput — capabilities that, as ICREA Professor and Human Cell Atlas member Holger Heyn noted, represent the field's "ultimate approach to measure single cells in their tissue context.".  Read the full announcement here. 

We are immensely proud to introduce this new platform, and we invite you to explore its features through the following resources:

• For the latest information, visit the product page. 
• Want to get in touch right away? Speak to Atera sales specialist.
• Watch the webinar — Introducing Atera: Get a firsthand look at uncompromised spatial

Datasets are now available

• Preview Data: Atera In Situ Gene Expression Data for FFPE Human Cervical Cancer
  • Interactively explore this dataset with the web demo (click "Open web demo"), a preview of the upcoming desktop version of visualization software.
• Preview Data: Atera In Situ Gene Expression Data for FFPE Human Breast Cancer

Atera World Tour 2026

In science, seeing is believing, and there’s no substitute for seeing what you thought was impossible happen right before your eyes. We invite you to join us on a stop of the 10x Genomics World Tour, where you can: 

• See the data from early-access customers and hear about their experience with Atera.
• Get your questions answered by our R&D and senior leadership

Upcoming dates:  May 21, 2026 Stockholm | June 17, 2026 Lausanne | June 23, 2026 Barcelona | June 24, 2026 Milan | June 30, 2026 Zurich

Open call: Win a Flex Apex experiment

Got a bold research idea but need preliminary data to make your grant application competitive? That's exactly what this program is designed for.

We're launching the EMEA Chromium Flex Apex Grant Program 2026, a grant for translational researchers who want to run a single cell pilot project and use the data to go after bigger funding. Whether you're already working in single cell, coming from bulk sequencing, or exploring for the first time, if your science could benefit from cell-level resolution, we want to hear from you.

What's on offer:

• Grand prize: 16-reaction Flex Apex kit
• Runner-up ×2: 4-reaction Flex Apex kit each
• All winners will be able to consult our scientists, from sample prep to data analysis

How to apply: Submit a 300-word abstract outlining your pilot project and how you'd use the results to apply for larger-scale funding. Winners are selected on scientific merit, creativity, and innovation. Application deadline is June 15, 2026. Learn more about the program and apply here.

Resource hub

This time, we bring you a selection of resources that cover sample prep, in anticipation of our upcoming webinar on this topic. See:

• Single Cell FFPE Tested Tissues, using GEM-X Flex and GEM-X Flex v2 (Flex Apex)
• Single Cell Flex Tested Tissues, using GEM-X Flex or GEM-X Flex v2 (Flex Apex) Gene Expression and Next GEM Flex Gene Expression
• Plate-based sample handling and a new era of scale

Webinar recordings

Did you know that all our webinars are available to watch on-demand? Here's a selection of our webinars covering new products, opportunities for translational research, and more:

• Introducing Atera: Get a firsthand look at uncompromised spatial, featuring 10x Genomics R&D and senior leadership and early-access customers
• GEM-X Multiome: Bringing next-generation sensitivity and cost efficiency to joint epigenome and transcriptome profiling. Speaker: Dirk Jürgensen, Staff Field Application Scientist, 10x Genomics
• Mapping the rules of glioblastoma with single cell and spatial genomics. Speaker: Omer Bayraktar, Group Leader, Cellular Genomics, Wellcome Sanger Institute

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