Single-cell RNA-seq interpretations using evolutionary multiobjective ensemble pruning

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (16) ◽  
pp. 2809-2817 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangtao Li ◽  
Shixiong Zhang ◽  
Ka-Chun Wong

Abstract Motivation In recent years, single-cell RNA sequencing enables us to discover cell types or even subtypes. Its increasing availability provides opportunities to identify cell populations from single-cell RNA-seq data. Computational methods have been employed to reveal the gene expression variations among multiple cell populations. Unfortunately, the existing ones can suffer from realistic restrictions such as experimental noises, numerical instability, high dimensionality and computational scalability. Results We propose an evolutionary multiobjective ensemble pruning algorithm (EMEP) that addresses those realistic restrictions. Our EMEP algorithm first applies the unsupervised dimensionality reduction to project data from the original high dimensions to low-dimensional subspaces; basic clustering algorithms are applied in those new subspaces to generate different clustering results to form cluster ensembles. However, most of those cluster ensembles are unnecessarily bulky with the expense of extra time costs and memory consumption. To overcome that problem, EMEP is designed to dynamically select the suitable clustering results from the ensembles. Moreover, to guide the multiobjective ensemble evolution, three cluster validity indices including the overall cluster deviation, the within-cluster compactness and the number of basic partition clusters are formulated as the objective functions to unleash its cell type discovery performance using evolutionary multiobjective optimization. We applied EMEP to 55 simulated datasets and seven real single-cell RNA-seq datasets, including six single-cell RNA-seq dataset and one large-scale dataset with 3005 cells and 4412 genes. Two case studies are also conducted to reveal mechanistic insights into the biological relevance of EMEP. We found that EMEP can achieve superior performance over the other clustering algorithms, demonstrating that EMEP can identify cell populations clearly. Availability and implementation EMEP is written in Matlab and available at https://github.com/lixt314/EMEP Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Author(s):  
Johannes Smolander ◽  
Sini Junttila ◽  
Mikko S Venäläinen ◽  
Laura L Elo

Abstract Motivation Single-cell RNA-seq allows researchers to identify cell populations based on unsupervised clustering of the transcriptome. However, subpopulations can have only subtle transcriptomic differences and the high dimensionality of the data makes their identification challenging. Results We introduce ILoReg, an R package implementing a new cell population identification method that improves identification of cell populations with subtle differences through a probabilistic feature extraction step that is applied before clustering and visualization. The feature extraction is performed using a novel machine learning algorithm, called iterative clustering projection (ICP), that uses logistic regression and clustering similarity comparison to iteratively cluster data. Remarkably, ICP also manages to integrate feature selection with the clustering through L1-regularization, enabling the identification of genes that are differentially expressed between cell populations. By combining solutions of multiple ICP runs into a single consensus solution, ILoReg creates a representation that enables investigating cell populations with a high resolution. In particular, we show that the visualization of ILoReg allows segregation of immune and pancreatic cell populations in a more pronounced manner compared with current state-of-the-art methods. Availability and implementation ILoReg is available as an R package at https://bioconductor.org/packages/ILoReg. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Author(s):  
Irzam Sarfraz ◽  
Muhammad Asif ◽  
Joshua D Campbell

Abstract Motivation R Experiment objects such as the SummarizedExperiment or SingleCellExperiment are data containers for storing one or more matrix-like assays along with associated row and column data. These objects have been used to facilitate the storage and analysis of high-throughput genomic data generated from technologies such as single-cell RNA sequencing. One common computational task in many genomics analysis workflows is to perform subsetting of the data matrix before applying down-stream analytical methods. For example, one may need to subset the columns of the assay matrix to exclude poor-quality samples or subset the rows of the matrix to select the most variable features. Traditionally, a second object is created that contains the desired subset of assay from the original object. However, this approach is inefficient as it requires the creation of an additional object containing a copy of the original assay and leads to challenges with data provenance. Results To overcome these challenges, we developed an R package called ExperimentSubset, which is a data container that implements classes for efficient storage and streamlined retrieval of assays that have been subsetted by rows and/or columns. These classes are able to inherently provide data provenance by maintaining the relationship between the subsetted and parent assays. We demonstrate the utility of this package on a single-cell RNA-seq dataset by storing and retrieving subsets at different stages of the analysis while maintaining a lower memory footprint. Overall, the ExperimentSubset is a flexible container for the efficient management of subsets. Availability and implementation ExperimentSubset package is available at Bioconductor: https://bioconductor.org/packages/ExperimentSubset/ and Github: https://github.com/campbio/ExperimentSubset. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Author(s):  
Givanna H Putri ◽  
Irena Koprinska ◽  
Thomas M Ashhurst ◽  
Nicholas J C King ◽  
Mark N Read

Abstract Motivation Many ‘automated gating’ algorithms now exist to cluster cytometry and single-cell sequencing data into discrete populations. Comparative algorithm evaluations on benchmark datasets rely either on a single performance metric, or a few metrics considered independently of one another. However, single metrics emphasize different aspects of clustering performance and do not rank clustering solutions in the same order. This underlies the lack of consensus between comparative studies regarding optimal clustering algorithms and undermines the translatability of results onto other non-benchmark datasets. Results We propose the Pareto fronts framework as an integrative evaluation protocol, wherein individual metrics are instead leveraged as complementary perspectives. Judged superior are algorithms that provide the best trade-off between the multiple metrics considered simultaneously. This yields a more comprehensive and complete view of clustering performance. Moreover, by broadly and systematically sampling algorithm parameter values using the Latin Hypercube sampling method, our evaluation protocol minimizes (un)fortunate parameter value selections as confounding factors. Furthermore, it reveals how meticulously each algorithm must be tuned in order to obtain good results, vital knowledge for users with novel data. We exemplify the protocol by conducting a comparative study between three clustering algorithms (ChronoClust, FlowSOM and Phenograph) using four common performance metrics applied across four cytometry benchmark datasets. To our knowledge, this is the first time Pareto fronts have been used to evaluate the performance of clustering algorithms in any application domain. Availability and implementation Implementation of our Pareto front methodology and all scripts and datasets to reproduce this article are available at https://github.com/ghar1821/ParetoBench. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Author(s):  
Yang Xu ◽  
Priyojit Das ◽  
Rachel Patton McCord

Abstract Motivation Deep learning approaches have empowered single-cell omics data analysis in many ways and generated new insights from complex cellular systems. As there is an increasing need for single cell omics data to be integrated across sources, types, and features of data, the challenges of integrating single-cell omics data are rising. Here, we present an unsupervised deep learning algorithm that learns discriminative representations for single-cell data via maximizing mutual information, SMILE (Single-cell Mutual Information Learning). Results Using a unique cell-pairing design, SMILE successfully integrates multi-source single-cell transcriptome data, removing batch effects and projecting similar cell types, even from different tissues, into the shared space. SMILE can also integrate data from two or more modalities, such as joint profiling technologies using single-cell ATAC-seq, RNA-seq, DNA methylation, Hi-C, and ChIP data. When paired cells are known, SMILE can integrate data with unmatched feature, such as genes for RNA-seq and genome wide peaks for ATAC-seq. Integrated representations learned from joint profiling technologies can then be used as a framework for comparing independent single source data. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. The source code of SMILE including analyses of key results in the study can be found at: https://github.com/rpmccordlab/SMILE.


Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3126
Author(s):  
Dominik Saul ◽  
Robyn Laura Kosinsky

The human aging process is associated with molecular changes and cellular degeneration, resulting in a significant increase in cancer incidence with age. Despite their potential correlation, the relationship between cancer- and ageing-related transcriptional changes is largely unknown. In this study, we aimed to analyze aging-associated transcriptional patterns in publicly available bulk mRNA-seq and single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) datasets for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), colorectal cancer (CRC), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), lung cancer (LC), and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Indeed, we detected that various aging/senescence-induced genes (ASIGs) were upregulated in malignant diseases compared to healthy control samples. To elucidate the importance of ASIGs during cell development, pseudotime analyses were performed, which revealed a late enrichment of distinct cancer-specific ASIG signatures. Notably, we were able to demonstrate that all cancer entities analyzed in this study comprised cell populations expressing ASIGs. While only minor correlations were detected between ASIGs and transcriptome-wide changes in PDAC, a high proportion of ASIGs was induced in CML, CRC, HCC, and LC samples. These unique cellular subpopulations could serve as a basis for future studies on the role of aging and senescence in human malignancies.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhun Miao ◽  
Ke Deng ◽  
Xiaowo Wang ◽  
Xuegong Zhang

AbstractSummaryThe excessive amount of zeros in single-cell RNA-seq data include “real” zeros due to the on-off nature of gene transcription in single cells and “dropout” zeros due to technical reasons. Existing differential expression (DE) analysis methods cannot distinguish these two types of zeros. We developed an R package DEsingle which employed Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial model to estimate the proportion of real and dropout zeros and to define and detect 3 types of DE genes in single-cell RNA-seq data with higher accuracy.Availability and ImplementationThe R package DEsingle is freely available at https://github.com/miaozhun/DEsingle and is under Bioconductor’s consideration [email protected] informationSupplementary data are available at bioRxiv online.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunxiang Wang ◽  
Xin Gao ◽  
Juntao Liu

Abstract Background Advances in single-cell RNA-seq technology have led to great opportunities for the quantitative characterization of cell types, and many clustering algorithms have been developed based on single-cell gene expression. However, we found that different data preprocessing methods show quite different effects on clustering algorithms. Moreover, there is no specific preprocessing method that is applicable to all clustering algorithms, and even for the same clustering algorithm, the best preprocessing method depends on the input data. Results We designed a graph-based algorithm, SC3-e, specifically for discriminating the best data preprocessing method for SC3, which is currently the most widely used clustering algorithm for single cell clustering. When tested on eight frequently used single-cell RNA-seq data sets, SC3-e always accurately selects the best data preprocessing method for SC3 and therefore greatly enhances the clustering performance of SC3. Conclusion The SC3-e algorithm is practically powerful for discriminating the best data preprocessing method, and therefore largely enhances the performance of cell-type clustering of SC3. It is expected to play a crucial role in the related studies of single-cell clustering, such as the studies of human complex diseases and discoveries of new cell types.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (24) ◽  
pp. 5155-5162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengzhong Ye ◽  
Terence P Speed ◽  
Agus Salim

Abstract Motivation Dropout is a common phenomenon in single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) data, and when left unaddressed it affects the validity of the statistical analyses. Despite this, few current methods for differential expression (DE) analysis of scRNA-seq data explicitly model the process that gives rise to the dropout events. We develop DECENT, a method for DE analysis of scRNA-seq data that explicitly and accurately models the molecule capture process in scRNA-seq experiments. Results We show that DECENT demonstrates improved DE performance over existing DE methods that do not explicitly model dropout. This improvement is consistently observed across several public scRNA-seq datasets generated using different technological platforms. The gain in improvement is especially large when the capture process is overdispersed. DECENT maintains type I error well while achieving better sensitivity. Its performance without spike-ins is almost as good as when spike-ins are used to calibrate the capture model. Availability and implementation The method is implemented as a publicly available R package available from https://github.com/cz-ye/DECENT. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Author(s):  
Congting Ye ◽  
Qian Zhou ◽  
Xiaohui Wu ◽  
Chen Yu ◽  
Guoli Ji ◽  
...  

Abstract Motivation Alternative polyadenylation (APA) plays a key post-transcriptional regulatory role in mRNA stability and functions in eukaryotes. Single cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) is a powerful tool to discover cellular heterogeneity at gene expression level. Given 3′ enriched strategy in library construction, the most commonly used scRNA-seq protocol—10× Genomics enables us to improve the study resolution of APA to the single cell level. However, currently there is no computational tool available for investigating APA profiles from scRNA-seq data. Results Here, we present a package scDAPA for detecting and visualizing dynamic APA from scRNA-seq data. Taking bam/sam files and cell cluster labels as inputs, scDAPA detects APA dynamics using a histogram-based method and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test, and visualizes candidate genes with dynamic APA. Benchmarking results demonstrated that scDAPA can effectively identify genes with dynamic APA among different cell groups from scRNA-seq data. Availability and implementation The scDAPA package is implemented in Shell and R, and is freely available at https://scdapa.sourceforge.io. Contact [email protected] Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


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