Quantum Barcoding Bridges High-Dimensional Immune Phenotyping with Signaling Responses across Species

Abstract

Cross-species immune profiling is limited by marker-panel size and antibody cross-reactivity. We benchmark Quantum Barcoding (QBC), a split-pool oligo-antibody assay, against mass cytometry in human and rhesus macaque blood and integrate separately measured cells using MARIO. The resulting computationally matched profiles carry 174 protein features. Population-frequency concordance was higher in humans (Pearson r = 0.92) than rhesus macaques (r = 0.55), and fusion resolved complementary lineage subsets. Unstimulated signaling conservation varied by lineage, with B-cell profiles correlated across species (Spearman {rho} = 0.70). In the primary PBMC-reference analysis, GM-CSF increased pSTAT5 in human monocytes and dendritic populations and rhesus dendritic cells. Network inference identified convergent pSTAT5-centered connectivity changes in human monocytes and rhesus dendritic cells, including pSTAT1-edge reversal and gained pSTAT3/pERK coupling. These results connect broad surface phenotypes to inferred signaling organization while retaining species- and population-specific differences.