Spatial atlas of diabetic kidney disease reveals a B cell-rich subgroup

Sample acquisition and ethics approval The University of Pennsylvania institutional review board (IRB) approved the collection of human kidney tissue for this study. Left-over kidney samples were irreversibly de-identified, and no personal identifiers were gathered. Therefore, they were exempt from IRB review (category 4). We engaged an external, honest broker who was responsible for clinical data collection without disclosing personally identifiable information. Participants were not compensated. Some samples were collected as part of the Transformative Research in Diabetic Nephropathy (TRIDENT) study, a multicentre observational cohort study that enrolls, follows, and performs multiomics characterization of individuals with DKD. This study was approved by the University of Pennsylvania IRB and by the TRIDENT Steering Committee. Informed consent was obtained from each participant. The present research using the UKBB Resource was approved under Application Number 273810. Participants from the UKBB provided written informed consent allowing the use of their samples and data for medical research purposes. CosMx sample preparation and data preprocessing Tissue sections were cut at 5 µm thickness and prepared according to the manufacturer specifications (NanoString Technologies). …