The five benchmark ST datasets used in this study are publicly available as follows: DLPFC (human dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) dataset: (http://spatial.libd.org/spatialLIBD); MBA (anterior mouse brain tissue), BCDC (human breast cancer: in situ ductal carcinoma and invasive carcinoma) and BRCA (human breast cancer) datasets: (https://support.10xgenomics.com/spatial-gene-expression/datasets); HER2+ dataset (HER2-positive breast tumors): (https://github.com/almaan/her2st?tab=readme-ov-file). This evidence concerns the gene ERBB2 and breast ductal adenocarcinoma.