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Sun F, Li H, Sun D, Fu S, Gu L, Shao X, Wang Q, Dong X, Duan B, Xing F, Wu J, Xiao M, Zhao F, Han JDJ, Liu Q, Fan X, Li C, Wang C, Shi T. Single-cell omics: experimental workflow, data analyses and applications. SCIENCE CHINA. LIFE SCIENCES 2024:10.1007/s11427-023-2561-0. [PMID: 39060615 DOI: 10.1007/s11427-023-2561-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2023] [Accepted: 04/18/2024] [Indexed: 07/28/2024]
Abstract
Cells are the fundamental units of biological systems and exhibit unique development trajectories and molecular features. Our exploration of how the genomes orchestrate the formation and maintenance of each cell, and control the cellular phenotypes of various organismsis, is both captivating and intricate. Since the inception of the first single-cell RNA technology, technologies related to single-cell sequencing have experienced rapid advancements in recent years. These technologies have expanded horizontally to include single-cell genome, epigenome, proteome, and metabolome, while vertically, they have progressed to integrate multiple omics data and incorporate additional information such as spatial scRNA-seq and CRISPR screening. Single-cell omics represent a groundbreaking advancement in the biomedical field, offering profound insights into the understanding of complex diseases, including cancers. Here, we comprehensively summarize recent advances in single-cell omics technologies, with a specific focus on the methodology section. This overview aims to guide researchers in selecting appropriate methods for single-cell sequencing and related data analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fengying Sun
- Department of Clinical Laboratory, the Affiliated Wuhu Hospital of East China Normal University (The Second People's Hospital of Wuhu City), Wuhu, 241000, China
| | - Haoyan Li
- Pharmaceutical Informatics Institute, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
| | - Dongqing Sun
- Key Laboratory of Spine and Spinal Cord Injury Repair and Regeneration (Tongji University), Ministry of Education, Orthopaedic Department, Tongji Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China
- Frontier Science Center for Stem Cells, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China
| | - Shaliu Fu
- Key Laboratory of Spine and Spinal Cord Injury Repair and Regeneration (Tongji University), Ministry of Education, Orthopaedic Department, Tongji Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China
- Translational Medical Center for Stem Cell Therapy and Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Shanghai East Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China
- Research Institute of Intelligent Computing, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, 311121, China
- Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Shanghai, 201210, China
| | - Lei Gu
- Center for Single-cell Omics, School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China
| | - Xin Shao
- Pharmaceutical Informatics Institute, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, Jiaxing, 314103, China
| | - Qinqin Wang
- Center for Single-cell Omics, School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China
| | - Xin Dong
- Key Laboratory of Spine and Spinal Cord Injury Repair and Regeneration (Tongji University), Ministry of Education, Orthopaedic Department, Tongji Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China
- Frontier Science Center for Stem Cells, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China
| | - Bin Duan
- Key Laboratory of Spine and Spinal Cord Injury Repair and Regeneration (Tongji University), Ministry of Education, Orthopaedic Department, Tongji Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China
- Translational Medical Center for Stem Cell Therapy and Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Shanghai East Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China
- Research Institute of Intelligent Computing, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, 311121, China
- Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Shanghai, 201210, China
| | - Feiyang Xing
- Key Laboratory of Spine and Spinal Cord Injury Repair and Regeneration (Tongji University), Ministry of Education, Orthopaedic Department, Tongji Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China
- Frontier Science Center for Stem Cells, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China
| | - Jun Wu
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Regulatory Biology, the Institute of Biomedical Sciences and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
| | - Minmin Xiao
- Department of Clinical Laboratory, the Affiliated Wuhu Hospital of East China Normal University (The Second People's Hospital of Wuhu City), Wuhu, 241000, China.
| | - Fangqing Zhao
- Beijing Institutes of Life Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
| | - Jing-Dong J Han
- Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Center for Quantitative Biology (CQB), Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
| | - Qi Liu
- Key Laboratory of Spine and Spinal Cord Injury Repair and Regeneration (Tongji University), Ministry of Education, Orthopaedic Department, Tongji Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China.
- Translational Medical Center for Stem Cell Therapy and Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Shanghai East Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China.
- Research Institute of Intelligent Computing, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, 311121, China.
- Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Shanghai, 201210, China.
| | - Xiaohui Fan
- Pharmaceutical Informatics Institute, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, Jiaxing, 314103, China.
- Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Therapy for Major Gynecological Diseases, Women's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310006, China.
| | - Chen Li
- Center for Single-cell Omics, School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China.
| | - Chenfei Wang
- Key Laboratory of Spine and Spinal Cord Injury Repair and Regeneration (Tongji University), Ministry of Education, Orthopaedic Department, Tongji Hospital, Bioinformatics Department, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200082, China.
- Frontier Science Center for Stem Cells, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China.
| | - Tieliu Shi
- Department of Clinical Laboratory, the Affiliated Wuhu Hospital of East China Normal University (The Second People's Hospital of Wuhu City), Wuhu, 241000, China.
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Regulatory Biology, the Institute of Biomedical Sciences and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China.
- Key Laboratory of Advanced Theory and Application in Statistics and Data Science-MOE, School of Statistics, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
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Zeng Z, Ma Y, Hu L, Tan B, Liu P, Wang Y, Xing C, Xiong Y, Du H. OmicVerse: a framework for bridging and deepening insights across bulk and single-cell sequencing. Nat Commun 2024; 15:5983. [PMID: 39013860 PMCID: PMC11252408 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-50194-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/19/2023] [Accepted: 06/28/2024] [Indexed: 07/18/2024] Open
Abstract
Single-cell sequencing is frequently affected by "omission" due to limitations in sequencing throughput, yet bulk RNA-seq may contain these ostensibly "omitted" cells. Here, we introduce the single cell trajectory blending from Bulk RNA-seq (BulkTrajBlend) algorithm, a component of the OmicVerse suite that leverages a Beta-Variational AutoEncoder for data deconvolution and graph neural networks for the discovery of overlapping communities. This approach effectively interpolates and restores the continuity of "omitted" cells within single-cell RNA sequencing datasets. Furthermore, OmicVerse provides an extensive toolkit for both bulk and single cell RNA-seq analysis, offering seamless access to diverse methodologies, streamlining computational processes, fostering exquisite data visualization, and facilitating the extraction of significant biological insights to advance scientific research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zehua Zeng
- School of Chemistry and Biological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
- Daxing Research Institute, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
| | - Yuqing Ma
- Center of Precision Medicine and Healthcare, Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
- Institute of Biopharmaceutics and Health Engineering, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
| | - Lei Hu
- School of Chemistry and Biological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
- School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
| | - Bowen Tan
- Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
| | - Peng Liu
- School of Chemistry and Biological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
| | - Yixuan Wang
- School of Chemistry and Biological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
| | - Cencan Xing
- School of Chemistry and Biological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
- Daxing Research Institute, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
| | - Yuanyan Xiong
- Key Laboratory of Gene Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Healthy Aging Research, School of Life Sciences, Sun-Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
| | - Hongwu Du
- School of Chemistry and Biological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
- Daxing Research Institute, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
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3
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Chen Z, Wang C, Huang S, Shi Y, Xi R. Directly selecting cell-type marker genes for single-cell clustering analyses. CELL REPORTS METHODS 2024; 4:100810. [PMID: 38981475 PMCID: PMC11294843 DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2024.100810] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2023] [Revised: 03/16/2024] [Accepted: 06/12/2024] [Indexed: 07/11/2024]
Abstract
In single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) studies, cell types and their marker genes are often identified by clustering and differentially expressed gene (DEG) analysis. A common practice is to select genes using surrogate criteria such as variance and deviance, then cluster them using selected genes and detect markers by DEG analysis assuming known cell types. The surrogate criteria can miss important genes or select unimportant genes, while DEG analysis has the selection-bias problem. We present Festem, a statistical method for the direct selection of cell-type markers for downstream clustering. Festem distinguishes marker genes with heterogeneous distribution across cells that are cluster informative. Simulation and scRNA-seq applications demonstrate that Festem can sensitively select markers with high precision and enables the identification of cell types often missed by other methods. In a large intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma dataset, we identify diverse CD8+ T cell types and potential prognostic marker genes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zihao Chen
- School of Mathematical Sciences and Center for Statistical Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Changhu Wang
- School of Mathematical Sciences and Center for Statistical Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Siyuan Huang
- Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Yang Shi
- BeiGene (Beijing) Co., Ltd., Beijing 100871, China
| | - Ruibin Xi
- School of Mathematical Sciences and Center for Statistical Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
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Cassan O, Lecellier CH, Martin A, Bréhélin L, Lèbre S. Optimizing data integration improves gene regulatory network inference in Arabidopsis thaliana. Bioinformatics 2024; 40:btae415. [PMID: 38913855 PMCID: PMC11227367 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae415] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2024] [Revised: 06/12/2024] [Accepted: 06/21/2024] [Indexed: 06/26/2024] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATIONS Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are traditionally inferred from gene expression profiles monitoring a specific condition or treatment. In the last decade, integrative strategies have successfully emerged to guide GRN inference from gene expression with complementary prior data. However, datasets used as prior information and validation gold standards are often related and limited to a subset of genes. This lack of complete and independent evaluation calls for new criteria to robustly estimate the optimal intensity of prior data integration in the inference process. RESULTS We address this issue for two regression-based GRN inference models, a weighted random forest (weigthedRF) and a generalized linear model estimated under a weighted LASSO penalty with stability selection (weightedLASSO). These approaches are applied to data from the root response to nitrate induction in Arabidopsis thaliana. For each gene, we measure how the integration of transcription factor binding motifs influences model prediction. We propose a new approach, DIOgene, that uses model prediction error and a simulated null hypothesis in order to optimize data integration strength in a hypothesis-driven, gene-specific manner. This integration scheme reveals a strong diversity of optimal integration intensities between genes, and offers good performance in minimizing prediction error as well as retrieving experimental interactions. Experimental results show that DIOgene compares favorably against state-of-the-art approaches and allows to recover master regulators of nitrate induction. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION The R code and notebooks demonstrating the use of the proposed approaches are available in the repository https://github.com/OceaneCsn/integrative_GRN_N_induction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Océane Cassan
- LIRMM, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, 34095, France
| | - Charles-Henri Lecellier
- LIRMM, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, 34095, France
- IGMM, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, 34090, France
| | - Antoine Martin
- IPSIM, CNRS, INRAE, Institut Agro, Univ Montpellier, 34060, Montpellier, France
| | | | - Sophie Lèbre
- LIRMM, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, 34095, France
- IMAG, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, 34090, France
- Université Paul-Valéry-Montpellier 3, Montpellier, 34090, France
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5
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Sarkar H, Chitra U, Gold J, Raphael BJ. A count-based model for delineating cell-cell interactions in spatial transcriptomics data. Bioinformatics 2024; 40:i481-i489. [PMID: 38940134 PMCID: PMC11211854 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae219] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/29/2024] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION Cell-cell interactions (CCIs) consist of cells exchanging signals with themselves and neighboring cells by expressing ligand and receptor molecules and play a key role in cellular development, tissue homeostasis, and other critical biological functions. Since direct measurement of CCIs is challenging, multiple methods have been developed to infer CCIs by quantifying correlations between the gene expression of the ligands and receptors that mediate CCIs, originally from bulk RNA-sequencing data and more recently from single-cell or spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT) data. SRT has a particular advantage over single-cell approaches, since ligand-receptor correlations can be computed between cells or spots that are physically close in the tissue. However, the transcript counts of individual ligands and receptors in SRT data are generally low, complicating the inference of CCIs from expression correlations. RESULTS We introduce Copulacci, a count-based model for inferring CCIs from SRT data. Copulacci uses a Gaussian copula to model dependencies between the expression of ligands and receptors from nearby spatial locations even when the transcript counts are low. On simulated data, Copulacci outperforms existing CCI inference methods based on the standard Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficients. Using several real SRT datasets, we show that Copulacci discovers biologically meaningful ligand-receptor interactions that are lowly expressed and undiscoverable by existing CCI inference methods. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION Copulacci is implemented in Python and available at https://github.com/raphael-group/copulacci.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hirak Sarkar
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, United States
- Ludwig Cancer Institute, Princeton Branch, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, United States
| | - Uthsav Chitra
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, United States
| | - Julian Gold
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, United States
- Center for Statistics and Machine Learning, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, United States
| | - Benjamin J Raphael
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, United States
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Qian J, Bao H, Shao X, Fang Y, Liao J, Chen Z, Li C, Guo W, Hu Y, Li A, Yao Y, Fan X, Cheng Y. Simulating multiple variability in spatially resolved transcriptomics with scCube. Nat Commun 2024; 15:5021. [PMID: 38866768 PMCID: PMC11169532 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49445-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2023] [Accepted: 06/03/2024] [Indexed: 06/14/2024] Open
Abstract
A pressing challenge in spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT) is to benchmark the computational methods. A widely-used approach involves utilizing simulated data. However, biases exist in terms of the currently available simulated SRT data, which seriously affects the accuracy of method evaluation and validation. Herein, we present scCube ( https://github.com/ZJUFanLab/scCube ), a Python package for independent, reproducible, and technology-diverse simulation of SRT data. scCube not only enables the preservation of spatial expression patterns of genes in reference-based simulations, but also generates simulated data with different spatial variability (covering the spatial pattern type, the resolution, the spot arrangement, the targeted gene type, and the tissue slice dimension, etc.) in reference-free simulations. We comprehensively benchmark scCube with existing single-cell or SRT simulators, and demonstrate the utility of scCube in benchmarking spot deconvolution, gene imputation, and resolution enhancement methods in detail through three applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jingyang Qian
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China
| | - Hudong Bao
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
| | - Xin Shao
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China
| | - Yin Fang
- College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310013, China
| | - Jie Liao
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China
| | - Zhuo Chen
- College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310013, China
| | - Chengyu Li
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China
| | - Wenbo Guo
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China
| | - Yining Hu
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China
| | - Anyao Li
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China
| | - Yue Yao
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China
| | - Xiaohui Fan
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China.
- Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Therapy for Major Gynecological Diseases, Women's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310006, China.
| | - Yiyu Cheng
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
- National Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Modernization, Innovation Center of Yangtze River Delta, Zhejiang University, 314100, Jiaxing, China.
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Duo H, Li Y, Lan Y, Tao J, Yang Q, Xiao Y, Sun J, Li L, Nie X, Zhang X, Liang G, Liu M, Hao Y, Li B. Systematic evaluation with practical guidelines for single-cell and spatially resolved transcriptomics data simulation under multiple scenarios. Genome Biol 2024; 25:145. [PMID: 38831386 PMCID: PMC11149245 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-024-03290-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2023] [Accepted: 05/28/2024] [Indexed: 06/05/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT) have led to groundbreaking advancements in life sciences. To develop bioinformatics tools for scRNA-seq and SRT data and perform unbiased benchmarks, data simulation has been widely adopted by providing explicit ground truth and generating customized datasets. However, the performance of simulation methods under multiple scenarios has not been comprehensively assessed, making it challenging to choose suitable methods without practical guidelines. RESULTS We systematically evaluated 49 simulation methods developed for scRNA-seq and/or SRT data in terms of accuracy, functionality, scalability, and usability using 152 reference datasets derived from 24 platforms. SRTsim, scDesign3, ZINB-WaVE, and scDesign2 have the best accuracy performance across various platforms. Unexpectedly, some methods tailored to scRNA-seq data have potential compatibility for simulating SRT data. Lun, SPARSim, and scDesign3-tree outperform other methods under corresponding simulation scenarios. Phenopath, Lun, Simple, and MFA yield high scalability scores but they cannot generate realistic simulated data. Users should consider the trade-offs between method accuracy and scalability (or functionality) when making decisions. Additionally, execution errors are mainly caused by failed parameter estimations and appearance of missing or infinite values in calculations. We provide practical guidelines for method selection, a standard pipeline Simpipe ( https://github.com/duohongrui/simpipe ; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11178409 ), and an online tool Simsite ( https://www.ciblab.net/software/simshiny/ ) for data simulation. CONCLUSIONS No method performs best on all criteria, thus a good-yet-not-the-best method is recommended if it solves problems effectively and reasonably. Our comprehensive work provides crucial insights for developers on modeling gene expression data and fosters the simulation process for users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hongrui Duo
- College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China
| | - Yinghong Li
- Chongqing Key Laboratory of Big Data for Bio Intelligence, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing, 400065, People's Republic of China
| | - Yang Lan
- Institute of Pathology and Southwest Cancer Center, Southwest Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, People's Republic of China
| | - Jingxin Tao
- College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China
| | - Qingxia Yang
- Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Therapy for Major Gynecological Diseases, Women's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310058, People's Republic of China
| | - Yingxue Xiao
- College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China
| | - Jing Sun
- College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China
| | - Lei Li
- College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China
| | - Xiner Nie
- Key Laboratory of Biorheological Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Bioengineering College, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, People's Republic of China
| | - Xiaoxi Zhang
- College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China
| | - Guizhao Liang
- Key Laboratory of Biorheological Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Bioengineering College, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, People's Republic of China
| | - Mingwei Liu
- Key Laboratory of Clinical Laboratory Diagnostics, College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People's Republic of China
| | - Youjin Hao
- College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China.
| | - Bo Li
- College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China.
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8
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Sang-aram C, Browaeys R, Seurinck R, Saeys Y. Spotless, a reproducible pipeline for benchmarking cell type deconvolution in spatial transcriptomics. eLife 2024; 12:RP88431. [PMID: 38787371 PMCID: PMC11126312 DOI: 10.7554/elife.88431] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Spatial transcriptomics (ST) technologies allow the profiling of the transcriptome of cells while keeping their spatial context. Since most commercial untargeted ST technologies do not yet operate at single-cell resolution, computational methods such as deconvolution are often used to infer the cell type composition of each sequenced spot. We benchmarked 11 deconvolution methods using 63 silver standards, 3 gold standards, and 2 case studies on liver and melanoma tissues. We developed a simulation engine called synthspot to generate silver standards from single-cell RNA-sequencing data, while gold standards are generated by pooling single cells from targeted ST data. We evaluated methods based on their performance, stability across different reference datasets, and scalability. We found that cell2location and RCTD are the top-performing methods, but surprisingly, a simple regression model outperforms almost half of the dedicated spatial deconvolution methods. Furthermore, we observe that the performance of all methods significantly decreased in datasets with highly abundant or rare cell types. Our results are reproducible in a Nextflow pipeline, which also allows users to generate synthetic data, run deconvolution methods and optionally benchmark them on their dataset (https://github.com/saeyslab/spotless-benchmark).
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Affiliation(s)
- Chananchida Sang-aram
- Data Mining and Modelling for Biomedicine, VIB Center for Inflammation ResearchGhentBelgium
- Department of Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics, Ghent UniversityGhentBelgium
| | - Robin Browaeys
- Data Mining and Modelling for Biomedicine, VIB Center for Inflammation ResearchGhentBelgium
- Department of Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics, Ghent UniversityGhentBelgium
| | - Ruth Seurinck
- Data Mining and Modelling for Biomedicine, VIB Center for Inflammation ResearchGhentBelgium
- Department of Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics, Ghent UniversityGhentBelgium
| | - Yvan Saeys
- Data Mining and Modelling for Biomedicine, VIB Center for Inflammation ResearchGhentBelgium
- Department of Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics, Ghent UniversityGhentBelgium
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9
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Wang W, Cen Y, Lu Z, Xu Y, Sun T, Xiao Y, Liu W, Li JJ, Wang C. scCDC: a computational method for gene-specific contamination detection and correction in single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-seq data. Genome Biol 2024; 25:136. [PMID: 38783325 PMCID: PMC11112958 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-024-03284-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Accepted: 05/16/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024] Open
Abstract
In droplet-based single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-seq assays, systematic contamination of ambient RNA molecules biases the quantification of gene expression levels. Existing methods correct the contamination for all genes globally. However, there lacks specific evaluation of correction efficacy for varying contamination levels. Here, we show that DecontX and CellBender under-correct highly contaminating genes, while SoupX and scAR over-correct lowly/non-contaminating genes. Here, we develop scCDC as the first method to detect the contamination-causing genes and only correct expression levels of these genes, some of which are cell-type markers. Compared with existing decontamination methods, scCDC excels in decontaminating highly contaminating genes while avoiding over-correction of other genes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Weijian Wang
- Centre of Biomedical Systems and Informatics, International Campus, ZJU-UoE Institute, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Haining, Zhejiang, 314400, China
| | - Yihui Cen
- Centre of Biomedical Systems and Informatics, International Campus, ZJU-UoE Institute, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Haining, Zhejiang, 314400, China
| | - Zezhen Lu
- Centre of Biomedical Systems and Informatics, International Campus, ZJU-UoE Institute, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Haining, Zhejiang, 314400, China
| | - Yueqing Xu
- Centre of Biomedical Systems and Informatics, International Campus, ZJU-UoE Institute, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Haining, Zhejiang, 314400, China
| | - Tianyi Sun
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Ying Xiao
- Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310020, China
| | - Wanlu Liu
- Centre of Biomedical Systems and Informatics, International Campus, ZJU-UoE Institute, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Haining, Zhejiang, 314400, China
| | - Jingyi Jessica Li
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
| | - Chaochen Wang
- Centre of Biomedical Systems and Informatics, International Campus, ZJU-UoE Institute, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Haining, Zhejiang, 314400, China.
- Department of Gynecology, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310020, China.
- Biomedical and Health Translational Research Centre, Zhejiang University, Haining, Zhejiang, 314400, China.
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10
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Xu J, Huang D, Zhang X. scmFormer Integrates Large-Scale Single-Cell Proteomics and Transcriptomics Data by Multi-Task Transformer. ADVANCED SCIENCE (WEINHEIM, BADEN-WURTTEMBERG, GERMANY) 2024; 11:e2307835. [PMID: 38483032 PMCID: PMC11109621 DOI: 10.1002/advs.202307835] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2023] [Revised: 01/24/2024] [Indexed: 05/23/2024]
Abstract
Transformer-based models have revolutionized single cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) data analysis. However, their applicability is challenged by the complexity and scale of single-cell multi-omics data. Here a novel single-cell multi-modal/multi-task transformer (scmFormer) is proposed to fill up the existing blank of integrating single-cell proteomics with other omics data. Through systematic benchmarking, it is demonstrated that scmFormer excels in integrating large-scale single-cell multimodal data and heterogeneous multi-batch paired multi-omics data, while preserving shared information across batchs and distinct biological information. scmFormer achieves 54.5% higher average F1 score compared to the second method in transferring cell-type labels from single-cell transcriptomics to proteomics data. Using COVID-19 datasets, it is presented that scmFormer successfully integrates over 1.48 million cells on a personal computer. Moreover, it is also proved that scmFormer performs better than existing methods on generating the unmeasured modality and is well-suited for spatial multi-omic data. Thus, scmFormer is a powerful and comprehensive tool for analyzing single-cell multi-omics data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Xu
- Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty AgricultureWuhan Botanical GardenChinese Academy of SciencesWuhan430074China
- University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing100049China
| | - De‐Shuang Huang
- Eastern Institute for Advanced StudyEastern Institute of TechnologyNingbo315200China
| | - Xiujun Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty AgricultureWuhan Botanical GardenChinese Academy of SciencesWuhan430074China
- Center of Economic BotanyCore Botanical GardensChinese Academy of SciencesWuhan430074China
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11
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Li R, Chen X, Yang X. Navigating the landscapes of spatial transcriptomics: How computational methods guide the way. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. RNA 2024; 15:e1839. [PMID: 38527900 DOI: 10.1002/wrna.1839] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2023] [Revised: 02/24/2024] [Accepted: 03/04/2024] [Indexed: 03/27/2024]
Abstract
Spatially resolved transcriptomics has been dramatically transforming biological and medical research in various fields. It enables transcriptome profiling at single-cell, multi-cellular, or sub-cellular resolution, while retaining the information of geometric localizations of cells in complex tissues. The coupling of cell spatial information and its molecular characteristics generates a novel multi-modal high-throughput data source, which poses new challenges for the development of analytical methods for data-mining. Spatial transcriptomic data are often highly complex, noisy, and biased, presenting a series of difficulties, many unresolved, for data analysis and generation of biological insights. In addition, to keep pace with the ever-evolving spatial transcriptomic experimental technologies, the existing analytical theories and tools need to be updated and reformed accordingly. In this review, we provide an overview and discussion of the current computational approaches for mining of spatial transcriptomics data. Future directions and perspectives of methodology design are proposed to stimulate further discussions and advances in new analytical models and algorithms. This article is categorized under: RNA Methods > RNA Analyses in Cells RNA Evolution and Genomics > Computational Analyses of RNA RNA Export and Localization > RNA Localization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Runze Li
- MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic & Systems Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Xu Chen
- MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic & Systems Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Xuerui Yang
- MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic & Systems Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
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12
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Liu T, Li K, Wang Y, Li H, Zhao H. Evaluating the Utilities of Foundation Models in Single-cell Data Analysis. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2023.09.08.555192. [PMID: 38464157 PMCID: PMC10925156 DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.08.555192] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/12/2024]
Abstract
Foundation Models (FMs) have made significant strides in both industrial and scientific domains. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of FMs in single-cell sequencing data analysis through comprehensive experiments across eight downstream tasks pertinent to single-cell data. By comparing ten different single-cell FMs with task-specific methods, we found that single-cell FMs may not consistently excel in all tasks than task-specific methods. However, the emergent abilities and the successful applications of cross-species/cross-modality transfer learning of FMs are promising. In addition, we present a systematic evaluation of the effects of hyper-parameters, initial settings, and stability for training single-cell FMs based on a proposed scEval framework, and provide guidelines for pre-training and fine-tuning. Our work summarizes the current state of single-cell FMs and points to their constraints and avenues for future development.
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13
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Xia L, Lee C, Li JJ. Statistical method scDEED for detecting dubious 2D single-cell embeddings and optimizing t-SNE and UMAP hyperparameters. Nat Commun 2024; 15:1753. [PMID: 38409103 PMCID: PMC10897166 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45891-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2023] [Accepted: 02/06/2024] [Indexed: 02/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Two-dimensional (2D) embedding methods are crucial for single-cell data visualization. Popular methods such as t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) and uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) are commonly used for visualizing cell clusters; however, it is well known that t-SNE and UMAP's 2D embeddings might not reliably inform the similarities among cell clusters. Motivated by this challenge, we present a statistical method, scDEED, for detecting dubious cell embeddings output by a 2D-embedding method. By calculating a reliability score for every cell embedding based on the similarity between the cell's 2D-embedding neighbors and pre-embedding neighbors, scDEED identifies the cell embeddings with low reliability scores as dubious and those with high reliability scores as trustworthy. Moreover, by minimizing the number of dubious cell embeddings, scDEED provides intuitive guidance for optimizing the hyperparameters of an embedding method. We show the effectiveness of scDEED on multiple datasets for detecting dubious cell embeddings and optimizing the hyperparameters of t-SNE and UMAP.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucy Xia
- Department of ISOM, School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China
| | - Christy Lee
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Jingyi Jessica Li
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- Department of Biostatistics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- Department of Computational Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- Department of Human Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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14
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Feng X, Shu W, Li M, Li J, Xu J, He M. Pathogenomics for accurate diagnosis, treatment, prognosis of oncology: a cutting edge overview. J Transl Med 2024; 22:131. [PMID: 38310237 PMCID: PMC10837897 DOI: 10.1186/s12967-024-04915-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2023] [Accepted: 01/20/2024] [Indexed: 02/05/2024] Open
Abstract
The capability to gather heterogeneous data, alongside the increasing power of artificial intelligence to examine it, leading a revolution in harnessing multimodal data in the life sciences. However, most approaches are limited to unimodal data, leaving integrated approaches across modalities relatively underdeveloped in computational pathology. Pathogenomics, as an invasive method to integrate advanced molecular diagnostics from genomic data, morphological information from histopathological imaging, and codified clinical data enable the discovery of new multimodal cancer biomarkers to propel the field of precision oncology in the coming decade. In this perspective, we offer our opinions on synthesizing complementary modalities of data with emerging multimodal artificial intelligence methods in pathogenomics. It includes correlation between the pathological and genomic profile of cancer, fusion of histology, and genomics profile of cancer. We also present challenges, opportunities, and avenues for future work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaobing Feng
- College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China
- Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310022, Zhejiang, China
| | - Wen Shu
- College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China
- Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310022, Zhejiang, China
| | - Mingya Li
- College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China
- Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310022, Zhejiang, China
| | - Junyu Li
- College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China
- Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310022, Zhejiang, China
| | - Junyao Xu
- Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310022, Zhejiang, China
| | - Min He
- College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China.
- Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310022, Zhejiang, China.
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15
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Kiessling P, Kuppe C. Spatial multi-omics: novel tools to study the complexity of cardiovascular diseases. Genome Med 2024; 16:14. [PMID: 38238823 PMCID: PMC10795303 DOI: 10.1186/s13073-024-01282-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2023] [Accepted: 01/02/2024] [Indexed: 01/22/2024] Open
Abstract
Spatial multi-omic studies have emerged as a promising approach to comprehensively analyze cells in tissues, enabling the joint analysis of multiple data modalities like transcriptome, epigenome, proteome, and metabolome in parallel or even the same tissue section. This review focuses on the recent advancements in spatial multi-omics technologies, including novel data modalities and computational approaches. We discuss the advancements in low-resolution and high-resolution spatial multi-omics methods which can resolve up to 10,000 of individual molecules at subcellular level. By applying and integrating these techniques, researchers have recently gained valuable insights into the molecular circuits and mechanisms which govern cell biology along the cardiovascular disease spectrum. We provide an overview of current data analysis approaches, with a focus on data integration of multi-omic datasets, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of various computational pipelines. These tools play a crucial role in analyzing and interpreting spatial multi-omics datasets, facilitating the discovery of new findings, and enhancing translational cardiovascular research. Despite nontrivial challenges, such as the need for standardization of experimental setups, data analysis, and improved computational tools, the application of spatial multi-omics holds tremendous potential in revolutionizing our understanding of human disease processes and the identification of novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Exciting opportunities lie ahead for the spatial multi-omics field and will likely contribute to the advancement of personalized medicine for cardiovascular diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul Kiessling
- Department of Nephrology, Rheumatology, and Clinical Immunology, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany
| | - Christoph Kuppe
- Department of Nephrology, Rheumatology, and Clinical Immunology, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
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16
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Chen C, Kim HJ, Yang P. Evaluating spatially variable gene detection methods for spatial transcriptomics data. Genome Biol 2024; 25:18. [PMID: 38225676 PMCID: PMC10789051 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-03145-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2022] [Accepted: 12/14/2023] [Indexed: 01/17/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The identification of genes that vary across spatial domains in tissues and cells is an essential step for spatial transcriptomics data analysis. Given the critical role it serves for downstream data interpretations, various methods for detecting spatially variable genes (SVGs) have been proposed. However, the lack of benchmarking complicates the selection of a suitable method. RESULTS Here we systematically evaluate a panel of popular SVG detection methods on a large collection of spatial transcriptomics datasets, covering various tissue types, biotechnologies, and spatial resolutions. We address questions including whether different methods select a similar set of SVGs, how reliable is the reported statistical significance from each method, how accurate and robust is each method in terms of SVG detection, and how well the selected SVGs perform in downstream applications such as clustering of spatial domains. Besides these, practical considerations such as computational time and memory usage are also crucial for deciding which method to use. CONCLUSIONS Our study evaluates the performance of each method from multiple aspects and highlights the discrepancy among different methods when calling statistically significant SVGs across diverse datasets. Overall, our work provides useful considerations for choosing methods for identifying SVGs and serves as a key reference for the future development of related methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carissa Chen
- Computational Systems Biology Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Children's Medical Research Institute, The University of Sydney, Westmead, NSW, 2145, Australia
| | - Hani Jieun Kim
- Computational Systems Biology Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Children's Medical Research Institute, The University of Sydney, Westmead, NSW, 2145, Australia.
| | - Pengyi Yang
- Computational Systems Biology Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Children's Medical Research Institute, The University of Sydney, Westmead, NSW, 2145, Australia.
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
- Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
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17
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Li Z, Patel ZM, Song D, Yan G, Li JJ, Pinello L. Benchmarking computational methods to identify spatially variable genes and peaks. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.12.02.569717. [PMID: 38076922 PMCID: PMC10705556 DOI: 10.1101/2023.12.02.569717] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2023]
Abstract
Spatially resolved transcriptomics offers unprecedented insight by enabling the profiling of gene expression within the intact spatial context of cells, effectively adding a new and essential dimension to data interpretation. To efficiently detect spatial structure of interest, an essential step in analyzing such data involves identifying spatially variable genes. Despite researchers having developed several computational methods to accomplish this task, the lack of a comprehensive benchmark evaluating their performance remains a considerable gap in the field. Here, we present a systematic evaluation of 14 methods using 60 simulated datasets generated by four different simulation strategies, 12 real-world transcriptomics, and three spatial ATAC-seq datasets. We find that spatialDE2 consistently outperforms the other benchmarked methods, and Moran's I achieves competitive performance in different experimental settings. Moreover, our results reveal that more specialized algorithms are needed to identify spatially variable peaks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhijian Li
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Molecular Pathology Unit, Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Zain M. Patel
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Molecular Pathology Unit, Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Dongyuan Song
- Interdepartmental Program of Bioinformatics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Guanao Yan
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Jingyi Jessica Li
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Luca Pinello
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Molecular Pathology Unit, Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
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18
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Song B, Liu D, Dai W, McMyn N, Wang Q, Yang D, Krejci A, Vasilyev A, Untermoser N, Loregger A, Song D, Williams B, Rosen B, Cheng X, Chao L, Kale HT, Zhang H, Diao Y, Bürckstümmer T, Siliciano JM, Li JJ, Siliciano R, Huangfu D, Li W. Decoding Heterogenous Single-cell Perturbation Responses. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.10.30.564796. [PMID: 37961332 PMCID: PMC10635009 DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.30.564796] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2023]
Abstract
Understanding diverse responses of individual cells to the same perturbation is central to many biological and biomedical problems. Current methods, however, do not precisely quantify the strength of perturbation responses and, more importantly, reveal new biological insights from heterogeneity in responses. Here we introduce the perturbation-response score (PS), based on constrained quadratic optimization, to quantify diverse perturbation responses at a single-cell level. Applied to single-cell transcriptomes of large-scale genetic perturbation datasets (e.g., Perturb-seq), PS outperforms existing methods for quantifying partial gene perturbation responses. In addition, PS presents two major advances. First, PS enables large-scale, single-cell-resolution dosage analysis of perturbation, without the need to titrate perturbation strength. By analyzing the dose-response patterns of over 2,000 essential genes in Perturb-seq, we identify two distinct patterns, depending on whether a moderate reduction in their expression induces strong downstream expression alterations. Second, PS identifies intrinsic and extrinsic biological determinants of perturbation responses. We demonstrate the application of PS in contexts such as T cell stimulation, latent HIV-1 expression, and pancreatic cell differentiation. Notably, PS unveiled a previously unrecognized, cell-type-specific role of coiled-coil domain containing 6 (CCDC6) in guiding liver and pancreatic lineage decisions, where CCDC6 knockouts drive the endoderm cell differentiation towards liver lineage, rather than pancreatic lineage. The PS approach provides an innovative method for dose-to-function analysis and will enable new biological discoveries from single-cell perturbation datasets. One sentence summary We present a method to quantify diverse perturbation responses and discover novel biological insights in single-cell perturbation datasets.
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19
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Yan G, Song D, Li JJ. scReadSim: a single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq read simulator. Nat Commun 2023; 14:7482. [PMID: 37980428 PMCID: PMC10657386 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43162-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2023] [Accepted: 11/02/2023] [Indexed: 11/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Benchmarking single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) and single-cell Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin using sequencing (scATAC-seq) computational tools demands simulators to generate realistic sequencing reads. However, none of the few read simulators aim to mimic real data. To fill this gap, we introduce scReadSim, a single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq read simulator that allows user-specified ground truths and generates synthetic sequencing reads (in a FASTQ or BAM file) by mimicking real data. At both read-sequence and read-count levels, scReadSim mimics real scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq data. Moreover, scReadSim provides ground truths, including unique molecular identifier (UMI) counts for scRNA-seq and open chromatin regions for scATAC-seq. In particular, scReadSim allows users to design cell-type-specific ground-truth open chromatin regions for scATAC-seq data generation. In benchmark applications of scReadSim, we show that UMI-tools achieves the top accuracy in scRNA-seq UMI deduplication, and HMMRATAC and MACS3 achieve the top performance in scATAC-seq peak calling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guanao Yan
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1554, USA
| | - Dongyuan Song
- Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-7246, USA
| | - Jingyi Jessica Li
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1554, USA.
- Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-7246, USA.
- Department of Human Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-7088, USA.
- Department of Computational Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1766, USA.
- Department of Biostatistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1772, USA.
- Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA.
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20
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Moses L, Einarsson PH, Jackson K, Luebbert L, Booeshaghi AS, Antonsson S, Bray N, Melsted P, Pachter L. Voyager: exploratory single-cell genomics data analysis with geospatial statistics. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.07.20.549945. [PMID: 37645732 PMCID: PMC10461913 DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.20.549945] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/31/2023]
Abstract
Exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) can be a powerful approach to understanding single-cell genomics datasets, but it is not yet part of standard data analysis workflows. In particular, geospatial analyses, which have been developed and refined for decades, have yet to be fully adapted and applied to spatial single-cell analysis. We introduce the Voyager platform, which systematically brings the geospatial ESDA tradition to (spatial) -omics, with local, bivariate, and multivariate spatial methods not yet commonly applied to spatial -omics, united by a uniform user interface. Using Voyager, we showcase biological insights that can be derived with its methods, such as biologically relevant negative spatial autocorrelation. Underlying Voyager is the SpatialFeatureExperiment data structure, which combines Simple Feature with SingleCellExperiment and AnnData to represent and operate on geometries bundled with gene expression data. Voyager has comprehensive tutorials demonstrating ESDA built on GitHub Actions to ensure reproducibility and scalability, using data from popular commercial technologies. Voyager is implemented in both R/Bioconductor and Python/PyPI, and features compatibility tests to ensure that both implementations return consistent results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lambda Moses
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Pétur Helgi Einarsson
- Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, Reykjavík, Iceland
| | - Kayla Jackson
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Laura Luebbert
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - A. Sina Booeshaghi
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Sindri Antonsson
- Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, Reykjavík, Iceland
| | | | - Páll Melsted
- Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, Reykjavík, Iceland
| | - Lior Pachter
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
- Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
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21
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Song D, Li K, Ge X, Li JJ. ClusterDE: a post-clustering differential expression (DE) method robust to false-positive inflation caused by double dipping. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.07.21.550107. [PMID: 37546812 PMCID: PMC10401959 DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.21.550107] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/08/2023]
Abstract
In typical single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) data analysis, a clustering algorithm is applied to find putative cell types as clusters, and then a statistical differential expression (DE) test is used to identify the differentially expressed (DE) genes between the cell clusters. However, this common procedure uses the same data twice, an issue known as "double dipping": the same data is used to define both cell clusters and DE genes, leading to false-positive DE genes even when the cell clusters are spurious. To overcome this challenge, we propose ClusterDE, a post-clustering DE test for controlling the false discovery rate (FDR) of identified DE genes regardless of clustering quality. The core idea of ClusterDE is to generate real-data-based synthetic null data with only one cluster, as a counterfactual in contrast to the real data, for evaluating the whole procedure of clustering followed by a DE test. Using comprehensive simulation and real data analysis, we show that ClusterDE has not only solid FDR control but also the ability to find cell-type marker genes that are biologically meaningful. ClusterDE is fast, transparent, and adaptive to a wide range of clustering algorithms and DE tests. Besides scRNA-seq data, ClusterDE is generally applicable to post-clustering DE analysis, including single-cell multi-omics data analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dongyuan Song
- Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7246
| | - Kexin Li
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1554
| | - Xinzhou Ge
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1554
| | - Jingyi Jessica Li
- Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7246
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1554
- Department of Human Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7088
- Department of Computational Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1766
- Department of Biostatistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772
- Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
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22
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Lin Y, Cao Y, Willie E, Patrick E, Yang JYH. Atlas-scale single-cell multi-sample multi-condition data integration using scMerge2. Nat Commun 2023; 14:4272. [PMID: 37460600 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39923-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2022] [Accepted: 07/04/2023] [Indexed: 07/20/2023] Open
Abstract
The recent emergence of multi-sample multi-condition single-cell multi-cohort studies allows researchers to investigate different cell states. The effective integration of multiple large-cohort studies promises biological insights into cells under different conditions that individual studies cannot provide. Here, we present scMerge2, a scalable algorithm that allows data integration of atlas-scale multi-sample multi-condition single-cell studies. We have generalized scMerge2 to enable the merging of millions of cells from single-cell studies generated by various single-cell technologies. Using a large COVID-19 data collection with over five million cells from 1000+ individuals, we demonstrate that scMerge2 enables multi-sample multi-condition scRNA-seq data integration from multiple cohorts and reveals signatures derived from cell-type expression that are more accurate in discriminating disease progression. Further, we demonstrate that scMerge2 can remove dataset variability in CyTOF, imaging mass cytometry and CITE-seq experiments, demonstrating its applicability to a broad spectrum of single-cell profiling technologies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yingxin Lin
- Sydney Precision Data Science Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited (D24H), Science Park, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Yue Cao
- Sydney Precision Data Science Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited (D24H), Science Park, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Elijah Willie
- Sydney Precision Data Science Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Ellis Patrick
- Sydney Precision Data Science Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited (D24H), Science Park, Hong Kong SAR, China
- The Westmead Institute for Medical Research, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia
| | - Jean Y H Yang
- Sydney Precision Data Science Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
- Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
- Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited (D24H), Science Park, Hong Kong SAR, China.
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23
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Li JJ. How the Monty Hall problem is similar to the false discovery rate in high-throughput data analysis. Nat Biotechnol 2023; 41:754-755. [PMID: 37198440 PMCID: PMC11078861 DOI: 10.1038/s41587-023-01794-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/19/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Jingyi Jessica Li
- Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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