Spatially Encoded Biological Assays

Abstract

The present invention provides assays and assay systems for use in spatially encoded biological assays. The invention provides an assay system comprising an assay capable of high levels of multiplexing where reagents are provided to a biological sample in defined spatial patterns; instrumentation capable of controlled delivery of reagents according to the spatial patterns; and a decoding scheme providing a readout that is digital in nature.

1 . An assay system to determine spatial patterns of abundance or activity or both of multiple biological targets at multiple sites in a sample, wherein the assay system performs the following steps:
 providing a sample affixed to a support;   delivering encoded probes for the multiple biological targets to the multiple sites in the sample in a known spatial pattern, wherein each encoded probe comprises a probe region that may interact with the biological targets and a coding tag that identifies a location of the site to which the encoded probe was delivered;   allowing the encoded probes to interact with the biological targets;   separating encoded probes that interact with the biological targets from encoded probes that do not interact with the biological targets;   determining all or a portion of a sequence of the encoded probes, and   associating the abundance or activity or both of the multiple biological targets to the locations of the sites in the sample.