Critical downstream analysis steps for single-cell RNA sequencing data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zilong Zhang ◽  
Feifei Cui ◽  
Chen Lin ◽  
Lingling Zhao ◽  
Chunyu Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Noisy Data ◽  
Single Cell Level ◽  
Cell Type ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Cell Level ◽  
Bioinformatics Tool ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing ◽  
Downstream Analysis

Abstract Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has enabled us to study biological questions at the single-cell level. Currently, many analysis tools are available to better utilize these relatively noisy data. In this review, we summarize the most widely used methods for critical downstream analysis steps (i.e. clustering, trajectory inference, cell-type annotation and integrating datasets). The advantages and limitations are comprehensively discussed, and we provide suggestions for choosing proper methods in different situations. We hope this paper will be useful for scRNA-seq data analysts and bioinformatics tool developers.

scholarly journals VASC: dimension reduction and visualization of single cell RNA sequencing data by deep variational autoencoder

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongfang Wang ◽  
Jin Gu
Keyword(s):  
Dimension Reduction ◽  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Marker Genes ◽  
Single Cell Level ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Cell Level ◽  
Variational Autoencoder ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing

AbstractSingle cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a powerful technique to analyze the transcriptomic heterogeneities in single cell level. It is an important step for studying cell sub-populations and lineages based on scRNA-seq data by finding an effective low-dimensional representation and visualization of the original data. The scRNA-seq data are much noiser than traditional bulk RNA-Seq: in the single cell level, the transcriptional fluctuations are much larger than the average of a cell population and the low amount of RNA transcripts will increase the rate of technical dropout events. In this study, we proposed VASC (deep Variational Autoencoder for scRNA-seq data), a deep multi-layer generative model, for the unsupervised dimension reduction and visualization of scRNA-seq data. It can explicitly model the dropout events and find the nonlinear hierarchical feature representations of the original data. Tested on twenty datasets, VASC shows superior performances in most cases and broader dataset compatibility compared with four state-of-the-art dimension reduction methods. Then, for a case study of pre-implantation embryos, VASC successfully re-establishes the cell dynamics and identifies several candidate marker genes associated with the early embryo development.

EnImpute: imputing dropout events in single-cell RNA-sequencing data via ensemble learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (22) ◽  
pp. 4827-4829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao-Fei Zhang ◽  
Le Ou-Yang ◽  
Shuo Yang ◽  
Xing-Ming Zhao ◽  
Xiaohua Hu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Ensemble Learning ◽  
R Package ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Downstream Analysis ◽  
Shiny Application

Abstract Summary Imputation of dropout events that may mislead downstream analyses is a key step in analyzing single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data. We develop EnImpute, an R package that introduces an ensemble learning method for imputing dropout events in scRNA-seq data. EnImpute combines the results obtained from multiple imputation methods to generate a more accurate result. A Shiny application is developed to provide easier implementation and visualization. Experiment results show that EnImpute outperforms the individual state-of-the-art methods in almost all situations. EnImpute is useful for correcting the noisy scRNA-seq data before performing downstream analysis. Availability and implementation The R package and Shiny application are available through Github at https://github.com/Zhangxf-ccnu/EnImpute. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

scholarly journals scConsensus: combining supervised and unsupervised clustering for cell type identification in single-cell RNA sequencing data

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bobby Ranjan ◽  
Florian Schmidt ◽  
Wenjie Sun ◽  
Jinyu Park ◽  
Mohammad Amin Honardoost ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Differentially Expressed Genes ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Unsupervised Clustering ◽  
Differentially Expressed ◽  
Consensus Clustering ◽  
Cell Type ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing

Abstract Background Clustering is a crucial step in the analysis of single-cell data. Clusters identified in an unsupervised manner are typically annotated to cell types based on differentially expressed genes. In contrast, supervised methods use a reference panel of labelled transcriptomes to guide both clustering and cell type identification. Supervised and unsupervised clustering approaches have their distinct advantages and limitations. Therefore, they can lead to different but often complementary clustering results. Hence, a consensus approach leveraging the merits of both clustering paradigms could result in a more accurate clustering and a more precise cell type annotation. Results We present scConsensus, an $${\mathbf {R}}$$ R framework for generating a consensus clustering by (1) integrating results from both unsupervised and supervised approaches and (2) refining the consensus clusters using differentially expressed genes. The value of our approach is demonstrated on several existing single-cell RNA sequencing datasets, including data from sorted PBMC sub-populations. Conclusions scConsensus combines the merits of unsupervised and supervised approaches to partition cells with better cluster separation and homogeneity, thereby increasing our confidence in detecting distinct cell types. scConsensus is implemented in $${\mathbf {R}}$$ R and is freely available on GitHub at https://github.com/prabhakarlab/scConsensus.

scholarly journals Applications and analytical tools of cell communication based on ligand-receptor interactions at single cell level

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fen Ma ◽  
Siwei Zhang ◽  
Lianhao Song ◽  
Bozhi Wang ◽  
Lanlan Wei ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Cell Communication ◽  
Cellular Communication ◽  
Specific Cell ◽  
Single Cell Level ◽  
Cell Level ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Receptor Interactions ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing

Abstract Background Cellular communication is an essential feature of multicellular organisms. Binding of ligands to their homologous receptors, which activate specific cell signaling pathways, is a basic type of cellular communication and intimately linked to many degeneration processes leading to diseases. Main body This study reviewed the history of ligand-receptor and presents the databases which store ligand-receptor pairs. The recently applications and research tools of ligand-receptor interactions for cell communication at single cell level by using single cell RNA sequencing have been sorted out. Conclusion The summary of the advantages and disadvantages of analysis tools will greatly help researchers analyze cell communication at the single cell level. Learning cell communication based on ligand-receptor interactions by single cell RNA sequencing gives way to developing new target drugs and personalizing treatment.

scholarly journals Cytosplore-Transcriptomics: a scalable inter-active framework for single-cell RNA sequencing data analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamim Abdelaal ◽  
Jeroen Eggermont ◽  
Thomas Höllt ◽  
Ahmed Mahfouz ◽  
Marcel J.T. Reinders ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Visual Exploration ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Interactive Analysis ◽  
Levels Of Detail ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing ◽  
Downstream Analysis ◽  
Low Dimensional

SummaryThe ever-increasing number of analyzed cells in Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) experiments imposes several challenges on the data analysis. Current analysis methods lack scalability to large datasets hampering interactive visual exploration of the data. We present Cytosplore-Transcriptomics, a framework to analyze scRNA-seq data, including data preprocessing, visualization and downstream analysis. At its core, it uses a hierarchical, manifold preserving representation of the data that allows the inspection and annotation of scRNA-seq data at different levels of detail. Consequently, Cytosplore-Transcriptomics provides interactive analysis of the data using low-dimensional visualizations that scales to millions of cells.AvailabilityCytosplore-Transcriptomics can be freely downloaded from [email protected]

scholarly journals Evaluation of methods to assign cell type labels to cell clusters from single-cell RNA-sequencing data

F1000Research ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 296 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Javier Diaz-Mejia ◽  
Elaine C. Meng ◽  
Alexander R. Pico ◽  
Sonya A. MacParland ◽  
Troy Ketela ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Human Peripheral Blood ◽  
Characteristic Curve ◽  
Cell Type ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Cell Clusters ◽  
Reference Cell ◽  
Mouse Tissues ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing

Background: Identification of cell type subpopulations from complex cell mixtures using single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data includes automated steps from normalization to cell clustering. However, assigning cell type labels to cell clusters is often conducted manually, resulting in limited documentation, low reproducibility and uncontrolled vocabularies. This is partially due to the scarcity of reference cell type signatures and because some methods support limited cell type signatures. Methods: In this study, we benchmarked five methods representing first-generation enrichment analysis (ORA), second-generation approaches (GSEA and GSVA), machine learning tools (CIBERSORT) and network-based neighbor voting (METANEIGHBOR), for the task of assigning cell type labels to cell clusters from scRNA-seq data. We used five scRNA-seq datasets: human liver, 11 Tabula Muris mouse tissues, two human peripheral blood mononuclear cell datasets, and mouse retinal neurons, for which reference cell type signatures were available. The datasets span Drop-seq, 10X Chromium and Seq-Well technologies and range in size from ~3,700 to ~68,000 cells. Results: Our results show that, in general, all five methods perform well in the task as evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis (average area under the curve (AUC) = 0.91, sd = 0.06), whereas precision-recall analyses show a wide variation depending on the method and dataset (average AUC = 0.53, sd = 0.24). We observed an influence of the number of genes in cell type signatures on performance, with smaller signatures leading more frequently to incorrect results. Conclusions: GSVA was the overall top performer and was more robust in cell type signature subsampling simulations, although different methods performed well using different datasets. METANEIGHBOR and GSVA were the fastest methods. CIBERSORT and METANEIGHBOR were more influenced than the other methods by analyses including only expected cell types. We provide an extensible framework that can be used to evaluate other methods and datasets at https://github.com/jdime/scRNAseq_cell_cluster_labeling.

scholarly journals SoupX removes ambient RNA contamination from droplet based single-cell RNA sequencing data

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D Young ◽  
Sam Behjati
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Expression Profiles ◽  
List Type ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Sequencing Technologies ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing ◽  
Biological Interpretation ◽  
Downstream Analysis ◽  
Rna Contamination

AbstractBackgroundDroplet based single-cell RNA sequence analyses assume all acquired RNAs are endogenous to cells. However, any cell free RNAs contained within the input solution are also captured by these assays. This sequencing of cell free RNA constitutes a background contamination that confounds the biological interpretation of single-cell transcriptomic data.ResultsWe demonstrate that contamination from this ‘soup’ of cell free RNAs is ubiquitous, with experiment-specific variations in composition and magnitude. We present a method, SoupX, for quantifying the extent of the contamination and estimating ‘background corrected’ cell expression profiles that seamlessly integrate with existing downstream analysis tools. Applying this method to several datasets using multiple droplet sequencing technologies, we demonstrate that its application improves biological interpretation of otherwise misleading data, as well as improving quality control metrics.ConclusionsWe present ‘SoupX’, a tool for removing ambient RNA contamination from droplet based single cell RNA sequencing experiments. This tool has broad applicability and its application can improve the biological utility of existing and future data sets.Key PointsThe signal from droplet based single cell RNA sequencing is ubiquitously contaminated by capture of ambient mRNA.SoupX is a method to quantify the abundance of these ambient mRNAs and remove them.Correcting for ambient mRNA contamination improves biological interpretation.

scholarly journals SciBet: a portable and fast single cell type identifier

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenwei Li ◽  
Baolin Liu ◽  
Boxi Kang ◽  
Zedao Liu ◽  
Yedan Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Cell Type ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Local Computation ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing ◽  
Cross Platform ◽  
Single Cell Type ◽  
User Friendly

ABSTRACTFast, robust and technology-independent computational methods are needed for supervised cell type annotation of single-cell RNA sequencing data. We present SciBet, a Bayesian classifier that accurately predicts cell identity for newly sequenced cells or cell clusters. We enable web client deployment of SciBet for rapid local computation without uploading local data to the server. This user-friendly and cross-platform tool can be widely useful for single cell type identification.

scholarly journals Comprehensive generation, visualization, and reporting of quality control metrics for single-cell RNA sequencing data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Hong ◽  
Yusuke Koga ◽  
Shruthi Bandyadka ◽  
Anastasia Leshchyk ◽  
Zhe Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Programming Environments ◽  
Marker Selection ◽  
Quality Control Metrics ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing ◽  
Standard Quality ◽  
Downstream Analysis

AbstractPerforming comprehensive quality control is necessary to remove technical or biological artifacts in single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data. Artifacts in the scRNA-seq data, such as doublets or ambient RNA, can also hinder downstream clustering and marker selection and need to be assessed. While several algorithms have been developed to perform various quality control tasks, they are only available in different packages across various programming environments. No standardized workflow has been developed to streamline the generation and reporting of all quality control metrics from these tools. We have built an easy-to-use pipeline, named SCTK-QC, in the singleCellTK package that generates a comprehensive set of quality control metrics from a plethora of packages for quality control. We are able to import data from several preprocessing tools including CellRanger, STARSolo, BUSTools, dropEST, Optimus, and SEQC. Standard quality control metrics for each cell are calculated including the total number of UMIs, total number of genes detected, and the percentage of counts mapping to predefined gene sets such as mitochondrial genes. Doublet detection algorithms employed include scrublet, scds, doubletCells, and doubletFinder. DecontX is used to identify contamination in each individual cell. To make the data accessible in downstream analysis workflows, the results can be exported to common data structures in R and Python or to text files for use in any generic workflow. Overall, this pipeline will streamline and standardize quality control analyses for single cell RNA-seq data across different platforms.

scholarly journals scConsensus: combining supervised and unsupervised clustering for cell type identification in single-cell RNA sequencing data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bobby Ranjan ◽  
Florian Schmidt ◽  
Wenjie Sun ◽  
Jinyu Park ◽  
Mohammad Amin Honardoost ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Rna Sequencing ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Unsupervised Clustering ◽  
Differentially Expressed ◽  
Consensus Clustering ◽  
Cell Type ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Single Cell Rna Sequencing ◽  
Data Clusters

Clustering is a crucial step in the analysis of single-cell data. Clusters identified using unsupervised clustering are typically annotated to cell types based on differentially expressed genes. In contrast, supervised methods use a reference panel of labelled transcriptomes to guide both clustering and cell type identification. Supervised and unsupervised clustering strategies have their distinct advantages and limitations. Therefore, they can lead to different but often complementary clustering results. Hence, a consensus approach leveraging the merits of both clustering paradigms could result in a more accurate clustering and a more precise cell type annotation. We present scConsensus, an R framework for generating a consensus clustering by (i) integrating the results from both unsupervised and supervised approaches and (ii) refining the consensus clusters using differentially expressed (DE) genes. The value of our approach is demonstrated on several existing single-cell RNA sequencing datasets, including data from sorted PBMC sub-populations. scConsensus is freely available on GitHub at https://github.com/prabhakarlab/scConsensus.

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