1
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Protti G, Spreafico R. A primer on single-cell RNA-seq analysis using dendritic cells as a case study. FEBS Lett 2024. [PMID: 39245787 DOI: 10.1002/1873-3468.15009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2024] [Revised: 07/18/2024] [Accepted: 08/12/2024] [Indexed: 09/10/2024]
Abstract
Recent advances in single-cell (sc) transcriptomics have revolutionized our understanding of dendritic cells (DCs), pivotal players of the immune system. ScRNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) has unraveled a previously unrecognized complexity and heterogeneity of DC subsets, shedding light on their ontogeny and specialized roles. However, navigating the rapid technological progress and computational methods can be daunting for researchers unfamiliar with the field. This review aims to provide immunologists with a comprehensive introduction to sc transcriptomic analysis, offering insights into recent developments in DC biology. Addressing common analytical queries, we guide readers through popular tools and methodologies, supplemented with references to benchmarks and tutorials for in-depth understanding. By examining findings from pioneering studies, we illustrate how computational techniques have expanded our knowledge of DC biology. Through this synthesis, we aim to equip researchers with the necessary tools and knowledge to navigate and leverage scRNA-seq for unraveling the intricacies of DC biology and advancing immunological research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Protti
- Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Roberto Spreafico
- Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
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2
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Mizukoshi C, Kojima Y, Nomura S, Hayashi S, Abe K, Shimamura T. DeepKINET: a deep generative model for estimating single-cell RNA splicing and degradation rates. Genome Biol 2024; 25:229. [PMID: 39237934 PMCID: PMC11378460 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-024-03367-8] [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: 12/14/2023] [Accepted: 08/04/2024] [Indexed: 09/07/2024] Open
Abstract
Messenger RNA splicing and degradation are critical for gene expression regulation, the abnormality of which leads to diseases. Previous methods for estimating kinetic rates have limitations, assuming uniform rates across cells. DeepKINET is a deep generative model that estimates splicing and degradation rates at single-cell resolution from scRNA-seq data. DeepKINET outperforms existing methods on simulated and metabolic labeling datasets. Applied to forebrain and breast cancer data, it identifies RNA-binding proteins responsible for kinetic rate diversity. DeepKINET also analyzes the effects of splicing factor mutations on target genes in erythroid lineage cells. DeepKINET effectively reveals cellular heterogeneity in post-transcriptional regulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chikara Mizukoshi
- Division of Systems Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Aichi, Japan.
- Nagoya University Hospital, Aichi, Japan.
| | - Yasuhiro Kojima
- Laboratory of Computational Life Science, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan.
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, Medical Research Institute, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.
| | - Satoshi Nomura
- Division of Systems Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Aichi, Japan
| | - Shuto Hayashi
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, Medical Research Institute, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Ko Abe
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, Medical Research Institute, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Teppei Shimamura
- Division of Systems Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Aichi, Japan.
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, Medical Research Institute, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.
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3
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Adema K, Schon MA, Nodine MD, Kohlen W. Lost in space: what single-cell RNA sequencing cannot tell you. TRENDS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2024; 29:1018-1028. [PMID: 38570278 DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2024.03.010] [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: 11/16/2023] [Revised: 02/21/2024] [Accepted: 03/11/2024] [Indexed: 04/05/2024]
Abstract
Plant scientists are rapidly integrating single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) into their workflows. Maximizing the potential of scRNA-seq requires a proper understanding of the spatiotemporal context of cells. However, positional information is inherently lost during scRNA-seq, limiting its potential to characterize complex biological systems. In this review we highlight how current single-cell analysis pipelines cannot completely recover spatial information, which confounds biological interpretation. Various strategies exist to identify the location of RNA, from classical RNA in situ hybridization to spatial transcriptomics. Herein we discuss the possibility of utilizing this spatial information to supervise single-cell analyses. An integrative approach will maximize the potential of each technology, and lead to insights which go beyond the capability of each individual technology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kelvin Adema
- Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Biology, Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Michael A Schon
- Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Biology, Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands; Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Michael D Nodine
- Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Wouter Kohlen
- Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Biology, Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands; Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
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4
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Wang S, Al-Radhawi MA, Lauffenburger DA, Sontag ED. Recovering biomolecular network dynamics from single-cell omics data requires three time points. NPJ Syst Biol Appl 2024; 10:97. [PMID: 39191787 DOI: 10.1038/s41540-024-00424-7] [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: 05/10/2024] [Accepted: 08/10/2024] [Indexed: 08/29/2024] Open
Abstract
Single-cell omics technologies can measure millions of cells for up to thousands of biomolecular features, enabling data-driven studies of complex biological networks. However, these high-throughput experimental techniques often cannot track individual cells over time, thus complicating the understanding of dynamics such as time trajectories of cell states. These "dynamical phenotypes" are key to understanding biological phenomena such as differentiation fates. We show by mathematical analysis that, in spite of high dimensionality and lack of individual cell traces, three time-points of single-cell omics data are theoretically necessary and sufficient to uniquely determine the network interaction matrix and associated dynamics. Moreover, we show through numerical simulations that an interaction matrix can be accurately determined with three or more time-points even in the presence of sampling and measurement noise typical of single-cell omics. Our results can guide the design of single-cell omics time-course experiments, and provide a tool for data-driven phase-space analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shu Wang
- Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Muhammad Ali Al-Radhawi
- Departments of Bioengineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Douglas A Lauffenburger
- Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
| | - Eduardo D Sontag
- Departments of Bioengineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
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5
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Volteras D, Shahrezaei V, Thomas P. Global transcription regulation revealed from dynamical correlations in time-resolved single-cell RNA sequencing. Cell Syst 2024; 15:694-708.e12. [PMID: 39121860 DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2024.07.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2023] [Revised: 02/29/2024] [Accepted: 07/11/2024] [Indexed: 08/12/2024]
Abstract
Single-cell transcriptomics reveals significant variations in transcriptional activity across cells. Yet, it remains challenging to identify mechanisms of transcription dynamics from static snapshots. It is thus still unknown what drives global transcription dynamics in single cells. We present a stochastic model of gene expression with cell size- and cell cycle-dependent rates in growing and dividing cells that harnesses temporal dimensions of single-cell RNA sequencing through metabolic labeling protocols and cel lcycle reporters. We develop a parallel and highly scalable approximate Bayesian computation method that corrects for technical variation and accurately quantifies absolute burst frequency, burst size, and degradation rate along the cell cycle at a transcriptome-wide scale. Using Bayesian model selection, we reveal scaling between transcription rates and cell size and unveil waves of gene regulation across the cell cycle-dependent transcriptome. Our study shows that stochastic modeling of dynamical correlations identifies global mechanisms of transcription regulation. A record of this paper's transparent peer review process is included in the supplemental information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dimitris Volteras
- Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK
| | - Vahid Shahrezaei
- Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
| | - Philipp Thomas
- Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
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6
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Loers JU, Vermeirssen V. A single-cell multimodal view on gene regulatory network inference from transcriptomics and chromatin accessibility data. Brief Bioinform 2024; 25:bbae382. [PMID: 39207727 PMCID: PMC11359808 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbae382] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2024] [Revised: 06/27/2024] [Accepted: 07/23/2024] [Indexed: 09/04/2024] Open
Abstract
Eukaryotic gene regulation is a combinatorial, dynamic, and quantitative process that plays a vital role in development and disease and can be modeled at a systems level in gene regulatory networks (GRNs). The wealth of multi-omics data measured on the same samples and even on the same cells has lifted the field of GRN inference to the next stage. Combinations of (single-cell) transcriptomics and chromatin accessibility allow the prediction of fine-grained regulatory programs that go beyond mere correlation of transcription factor and target gene expression, with enhancer GRNs (eGRNs) modeling molecular interactions between transcription factors, regulatory elements, and target genes. In this review, we highlight the key components for successful (e)GRN inference from (sc)RNA-seq and (sc)ATAC-seq data exemplified by state-of-the-art methods as well as open challenges and future developments. Moreover, we address preprocessing strategies, metacell generation and computational omics pairing, transcription factor binding site detection, and linear and three-dimensional approaches to identify chromatin interactions as well as dynamic and causal eGRN inference. We believe that the integration of transcriptomics together with epigenomics data at a single-cell level is the new standard for mechanistic network inference, and that it can be further advanced with integrating additional omics layers and spatiotemporal data, as well as with shifting the focus towards more quantitative and causal modeling strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jens Uwe Loers
- Lab for Computational Biology, Integromics and Gene Regulation (CBIGR), Cancer Research Institute Ghent (CRIG), Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology, Ghent University, Zwijnaarde-Technologiepark 71, 9052 Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Biomolecular Medicine, Ghent University, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
| | - Vanessa Vermeirssen
- Lab for Computational Biology, Integromics and Gene Regulation (CBIGR), Cancer Research Institute Ghent (CRIG), Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology, Ghent University, Zwijnaarde-Technologiepark 71, 9052 Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Biomolecular Medicine, Ghent University, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
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7
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Weiler P, Lange M, Klein M, Pe'er D, Theis F. CellRank 2: unified fate mapping in multiview single-cell data. Nat Methods 2024; 21:1196-1205. [PMID: 38871986 PMCID: PMC11239496 DOI: 10.1038/s41592-024-02303-9] [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: 07/18/2023] [Accepted: 05/09/2024] [Indexed: 06/15/2024]
Abstract
Single-cell RNA sequencing allows us to model cellular state dynamics and fate decisions using expression similarity or RNA velocity to reconstruct state-change trajectories; however, trajectory inference does not incorporate valuable time point information or utilize additional modalities, whereas methods that address these different data views cannot be combined or do not scale. Here we present CellRank 2, a versatile and scalable framework to study cellular fate using multiview single-cell data of up to millions of cells in a unified fashion. CellRank 2 consistently recovers terminal states and fate probabilities across data modalities in human hematopoiesis and endodermal development. Our framework also allows combining transitions within and across experimental time points, a feature we use to recover genes promoting medullary thymic epithelial cell formation during pharyngeal endoderm development. Moreover, we enable estimating cell-specific transcription and degradation rates from metabolic-labeling data, which we apply to an intestinal organoid system to delineate differentiation trajectories and pinpoint regulatory strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Weiler
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Marius Lange
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zürich, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Michal Klein
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- Machine Learning Research, Apple, Paris, France
| | - Dana Pe'er
- Computational and Systems Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD, USA
| | - Fabian Theis
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany.
- School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
- TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
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8
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Petrova K, Tretiakov M, Kotov A, Monsoro-Burq AH, Peshkin L. A new atlas to study embryonic cell types in Xenopus. Dev Biol 2024; 511:76-83. [PMID: 38614285 PMCID: PMC11315121 DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2024.04.003] [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: 01/25/2024] [Revised: 04/06/2024] [Accepted: 04/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/15/2024]
Abstract
This paper introduces a single-cell atlas for pivotal developmental stages in Xenopus, encompassing gastrulation, neurulation, and early tailbud. Notably surpassing its predecessors, the new atlas enhances gene mapping, read counts, and gene/cell type nomenclature. Leveraging the latest Xenopus tropicalis genome version, alongside advanced alignment pipelines and machine learning for cell type assignment, this release maintains consistency with previous cell type annotations while rectifying nomenclature issues. Employing an unbiased approach for cell type assignment proves especially apt for embryonic contexts, given the considerable number of non-terminally differentiated cell types. An alternative cell type attribution here adopts a fuzzy, non-deterministic stance, capturing the transient nature of early embryo progenitor cells by presenting an ensemble of types in superposition. The value of the new resource is emphasized through numerous examples, with a focus on previously unexplored germ cell populations where we uncover novel transcription onset features. Offering interactive exploration via a user-friendly web portal and facilitating complete data downloads, this atlas serves as a comprehensive and accessible reference.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kseniya Petrova
- Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | | | - Aleksandr Kotov
- Université Paris Saclay, Faculté des Sciences d'Orsay, CNRS UMR 3347, INSERM, U1021, Orsay, France; Institut Curie, PSL Research University, CNRS UMR 3347, INSERM U1021, F-91405, Orsay, France
| | - Anne H Monsoro-Burq
- Université Paris Saclay, Faculté des Sciences d'Orsay, CNRS UMR 3347, INSERM, U1021, Orsay, France; Institut Curie, PSL Research University, CNRS UMR 3347, INSERM U1021, F-91405, Orsay, France; Institut Universitaire de France, F-75005, Paris, France
| | - Leonid Peshkin
- Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA; Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, 02543, USA.
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9
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Sin DD. What Single Cell RNA Sequencing Has Taught Us about Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Tuberc Respir Dis (Seoul) 2024; 87:252-260. [PMID: 38369875 PMCID: PMC11222093 DOI: 10.4046/trd.2024.0001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2024] [Accepted: 02/17/2024] [Indexed: 02/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects close to 400 million people worldwide and is the 3rd leading cause of mortality. It is a heterogeneous disorder with multiple endophenotypes, each driven by specific molecular networks and processes. Therapeutic discovery in COPD has lagged behind other disease areas owing to a lack of understanding of its pathobiology and scarcity of biomarkers to guide therapies. Single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a powerful new tool to identify important cellular and molecular networks that play a crucial role in disease pathogenesis. This paper provides an overview of the scRNA-seq technology and its application in COPD and the lessons learned to date from scRNA-seq experiments in COPD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Don D. Sin
- Centre for Heart Lung Innovation, St. Paul’s Hospital and Division of Respiratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
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10
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Lee CY, Clatworthy MR, Withers DR. Decoding changes in tumor-infiltrating leukocytes through dynamic experimental models and single-cell technologies. Immunol Cell Biol 2024. [PMID: 38853634 DOI: 10.1111/imcb.12787] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2024] [Revised: 05/13/2024] [Accepted: 05/13/2024] [Indexed: 06/11/2024]
Abstract
The ability to characterize immune cells and explore the molecular interactions that govern their functions has never been greater, fueled in recent years by the revolutionary advance of single-cell analysis platforms. However, precisely how immune cells respond to different stimuli and where differentiation processes and effector functions operate remain incompletely understood. Inferring cellular fate within single-cell transcriptomic analyses is now omnipresent, despite the assumptions typically required in such analyses. Recently developed experimental models support dynamic analyses of the immune response, providing insights into the temporal changes that occur within cells and the tissues in which such transitions occur. Here we will review these approaches and discuss how these can be combined with single-cell technologies to develop a deeper understanding of the immune responses that should support the development of better therapeutic options for patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Colin Yc Lee
- Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infection Disease, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Menna R Clatworthy
- Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infection Disease, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - David R Withers
- Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
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11
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Park JH, Hothi P, de Lomana ALG, Pan M, Calder R, Turkarslan S, Wu WJ, Lee H, Patel AP, Cobbs C, Huang S, Baliga NS. Gene regulatory network topology governs resistance and treatment escape in glioma stem-like cells. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2024; 10:eadj7706. [PMID: 38848360 PMCID: PMC11160475 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj7706] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2023] [Accepted: 05/03/2024] [Indexed: 06/09/2024]
Abstract
Poor prognosis and drug resistance in glioblastoma (GBM) can result from cellular heterogeneity and treatment-induced shifts in phenotypic states of tumor cells, including dedifferentiation into glioma stem-like cells (GSCs). This rare tumorigenic cell subpopulation resists temozolomide, undergoes proneural-to-mesenchymal transition (PMT) to evade therapy, and drives recurrence. Through inference of transcriptional regulatory networks (TRNs) of patient-derived GSCs (PD-GSCs) at single-cell resolution, we demonstrate how the topology of transcription factor interaction networks drives distinct trajectories of cell-state transitions in PD-GSCs resistant or susceptible to cytotoxic drug treatment. By experimentally testing predictions based on TRN simulations, we show that drug treatment drives surviving PD-GSCs along a trajectory of intermediate states, exposing vulnerability to potentiated killing by siRNA or a second drug targeting treatment-induced transcriptional programs governing nongenetic cell plasticity. Our findings demonstrate an approach to uncover TRN topology and use it to rationally predict combinatorial treatments that disrupt acquired resistance in GBM.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Parvinder Hothi
- Ivy Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment, Swedish Neuroscience Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | - Min Pan
- Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | | | - Wei-Ju Wu
- Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Hwahyung Lee
- Ivy Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment, Swedish Neuroscience Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Anoop P. Patel
- Department of Neurosurgery, Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
- Center for Advanced Genomic Technologies, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Charles Cobbs
- Ivy Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment, Swedish Neuroscience Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Sui Huang
- Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Nitin S. Baliga
- Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA, USA
- Departments of Microbiology, Biology, and Molecular Engineering Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
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12
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Zhou P, Bocci F, Li T, Nie Q. Spatial transition tensor of single cells. Nat Methods 2024; 21:1053-1062. [PMID: 38755322 PMCID: PMC11166574 DOI: 10.1038/s41592-024-02266-x] [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: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 04/02/2024] [Indexed: 05/18/2024]
Abstract
Spatial transcriptomics and messenger RNA splicing encode extensive spatiotemporal information for cell states and transitions. The current lineage-inference methods either lack spatial dynamics for state transition or cannot capture different dynamics associated with multiple cell states and transition paths. Here we present spatial transition tensor (STT), a method that uses messenger RNA splicing and spatial transcriptomes through a multiscale dynamical model to characterize multistability in space. By learning a four-dimensional transition tensor and spatial-constrained random walk, STT reconstructs cell-state-specific dynamics and spatial state transitions via both short-time local tensor streamlines between cells and long-time transition paths among attractors. Benchmarking and applications of STT on several transcriptome datasets via multiple technologies on epithelial-mesenchymal transitions, blood development, spatially resolved mouse brain and chicken heart development, indicate STT's capability in recovering cell-state-specific dynamics and their associated genes not seen using existing methods. Overall, STT provides a consistent multiscale description of single-cell transcriptome data across multiple spatiotemporal scales.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peijie Zhou
- Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
- Center for Machine Learning Research, Peking University, Beijing, China
- AI for Science Institute, Beijing, China
- National Engineering Laboratory for Big Data Analysis and Applications, Beijing, China
| | - Federico Bocci
- Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
| | - Tiejun Li
- LMAM and School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Qing Nie
- Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
- Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
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13
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Maizels RJ, Snell DM, Briscoe J. Reconstructing developmental trajectories using latent dynamical systems and time-resolved transcriptomics. Cell Syst 2024; 15:411-424.e9. [PMID: 38754365 DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2024.04.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2023] [Revised: 02/01/2024] [Accepted: 04/17/2024] [Indexed: 05/18/2024]
Abstract
The snapshot nature of single-cell transcriptomics presents a challenge for studying the dynamics of cell fate decisions. Metabolic labeling and splicing can provide temporal information at single-cell level, but current methods have limitations. Here, we present a framework that overcomes these limitations: experimentally, we developed sci-FATE2, an optimized method for metabolic labeling with increased data quality, which we used to profile 45,000 embryonic stem (ES) cells differentiating into neural tube identities. Computationally, we developed a two-stage framework for dynamical modeling: VelvetVAE, a variational autoencoder (VAE) for velocity inference that outperforms all other tools tested, and VelvetSDE, a neural stochastic differential equation (nSDE) framework for simulating trajectory distributions. These recapitulate underlying dataset distributions and capture features such as decision boundaries between alternative fates and fate-specific gene expression. These methods recast single-cell analyses from descriptions of observed data to models of the dynamics that generated them, providing a framework for investigating developmental fate decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rory J Maizels
- The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London NW1 1AT, UK; University College, London, UK
| | - Daniel M Snell
- The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - James Briscoe
- The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London NW1 1AT, UK.
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14
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Miles CE, McKinley SA, Ding F, Lehoucq RB. Inferring Stochastic Rates from Heterogeneous Snapshots of Particle Positions. Bull Math Biol 2024; 86:74. [PMID: 38740619 DOI: 10.1007/s11538-024-01301-4] [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: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 04/20/2024] [Indexed: 05/16/2024]
Abstract
Many imaging techniques for biological systems-like fixation of cells coupled with fluorescence microscopy-provide sharp spatial resolution in reporting locations of individuals at a single moment in time but also destroy the dynamics they intend to capture. These snapshot observations contain no information about individual trajectories, but still encode information about movement and demographic dynamics, especially when combined with a well-motivated biophysical model. The relationship between spatially evolving populations and single-moment representations of their collective locations is well-established with partial differential equations (PDEs) and their inverse problems. However, experimental data is commonly a set of locations whose number is insufficient to approximate a continuous-in-space PDE solution. Here, motivated by popular subcellular imaging data of gene expression, we embrace the stochastic nature of the data and investigate the mathematical foundations of parametrically inferring demographic rates from snapshots of particles undergoing birth, diffusion, and death in a nuclear or cellular domain. Toward inference, we rigorously derive a connection between individual particle paths and their presentation as a Poisson spatial process. Using this framework, we investigate the properties of the resulting inverse problem and study factors that affect quality of inference. One pervasive feature of this experimental regime is the presence of cell-to-cell heterogeneity. Rather than being a hindrance, we show that cell-to-cell geometric heterogeneity can increase the quality of inference on dynamics for certain parameter regimes. Altogether, the results serve as a basis for more detailed investigations of subcellular spatial patterns of RNA molecules and other stochastically evolving populations that can only be observed for single instants in their time evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Scott A McKinley
- Department of Mathematics, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA
| | - Fangyuan Ding
- Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA
| | - Richard B Lehoucq
- Discrete Math and Optimization, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA
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15
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Gao CF, Vaikuntanathan S, Riesenfeld SJ. Dissection and integration of bursty transcriptional dynamics for complex systems. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2306901121. [PMID: 38669186 PMCID: PMC11067469 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2306901121] [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: 04/26/2023] [Accepted: 03/06/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
RNA velocity estimation is a potentially powerful tool to reveal the directionality of transcriptional changes in single-cell RNA-sequencing data, but it lacks accuracy, absent advanced metabolic labeling techniques. We developed an approach, TopicVelo, that disentangles simultaneous, yet distinct, dynamics by using a probabilistic topic model, a highly interpretable form of latent space factorization, to infer cells and genes associated with individual processes, thereby capturing cellular pluripotency or multifaceted functionality. Focusing on process-associated cells and genes enables accurate estimation of process-specific velocities via a master equation for a transcriptional burst model accounting for intrinsic stochasticity. The method obtains a global transition matrix by leveraging cell topic weights to integrate process-specific signals. In challenging systems, this method accurately recovers complex transitions and terminal states, while our use of first-passage time analysis provides insights into transient transitions. These results expand the limits of RNA velocity, empowering future studies of cell fate and functional responses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cheng Frank Gao
- Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL60637
| | - Suriyanarayanan Vaikuntanathan
- Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL60637
- Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL60637
| | - Samantha J. Riesenfeld
- Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL60637
- Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL60637
- Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL60637
- Committee on Immunology, Biological Sciences Division, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL60637
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16
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Mitic N, Neuschulz A, Spanjaard B, Schneider J, Fresmann N, Novoselc KT, Strunk T, Münster L, Olivares-Chauvet P, Ninkovic J, Junker JP. Dissecting the spatiotemporal diversity of adult neural stem cells. Mol Syst Biol 2024; 20:321-337. [PMID: 38365956 PMCID: PMC10987636 DOI: 10.1038/s44320-024-00022-z] [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: 05/04/2023] [Revised: 01/31/2024] [Accepted: 02/01/2024] [Indexed: 02/18/2024] Open
Abstract
Adult stem cells are important for tissue turnover and regeneration. However, in most adult systems it remains elusive how stem cells assume different functional states and support spatially patterned tissue architecture. Here, we dissected the diversity of neural stem cells in the adult zebrafish brain, an organ that is characterized by pronounced zonation and high regenerative capacity. We combined single-cell transcriptomics of dissected brain regions with massively parallel lineage tracing and in vivo RNA metabolic labeling to analyze the regulation of neural stem cells in space and time. We detected a large diversity of neural stem cells, with some subtypes being restricted to a single brain region, while others were found globally across the brain. Global stem cell states are linked to neurogenic differentiation, with different states being involved in proliferative and non-proliferative differentiation. Our work reveals principles of adult stem cell organization and establishes a resource for the functional manipulation of neural stem cell subtypes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nina Mitic
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Anika Neuschulz
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
- Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institute for Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Bastiaan Spanjaard
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Julia Schneider
- Helmholtz Center Munich - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Stem Cell Research, Munich, Germany
- Biomedical Center Munich (BMC), Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Medical Faculty, LMU, Munich, Germany
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, LMU, Munich, Germany
| | - Nora Fresmann
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Klara Tereza Novoselc
- Helmholtz Center Munich - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Stem Cell Research, Munich, Germany
- Biomedical Center Munich (BMC), Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Medical Faculty, LMU, Munich, Germany
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, LMU, Munich, Germany
| | - Taraneh Strunk
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Lisa Münster
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Pedro Olivares-Chauvet
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Jovica Ninkovic
- Helmholtz Center Munich - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Stem Cell Research, Munich, Germany
- Biomedical Center Munich (BMC), Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Medical Faculty, LMU, Munich, Germany
| | - Jan Philipp Junker
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany.
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
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17
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Li J, Pan X, Yuan Y, Shen HB. TFvelo: gene regulation inspired RNA velocity estimation. Nat Commun 2024; 15:1387. [PMID: 38360714 PMCID: PMC11258302 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45661-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: 04/15/2023] [Accepted: 01/30/2024] [Indexed: 02/17/2024] Open
Abstract
RNA velocity is closely related with cell fate and is an important indicator for the prediction of cell states with elegant physical explanation derived from single-cell RNA-seq data. Most existing RNA velocity models aim to extract dynamics from the phase delay between unspliced and spliced mRNA for each individual gene. However, unspliced/spliced mRNA abundance may not provide sufficient signal for dynamic modeling, leading to poor fit in phase portraits. Motivated by the idea that RNA velocity could be driven by the transcriptional regulation, we propose TFvelo, which expands RNA velocity concept to various single-cell datasets without relying on splicing information, by introducing gene regulatory information. Our experiments on synthetic data and multiple scRNA-Seq datasets show that TFvelo can accurately fit genes dynamics on phase portraits, and effectively infer cell pseudo-time and trajectory from RNA abundance data. TFvelo opens a robust and accurate avenue for modeling RNA velocity for single cell data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiachen Li
- Institute of Image Processing and Pattern Recognition, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Key Laboratory of System Control and Information Processing, Ministry of Education of China, Shanghai, 200240, China
| | - Xiaoyong Pan
- Institute of Image Processing and Pattern Recognition, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Key Laboratory of System Control and Information Processing, Ministry of Education of China, Shanghai, 200240, China
| | - Ye Yuan
- Institute of Image Processing and Pattern Recognition, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Key Laboratory of System Control and Information Processing, Ministry of Education of China, Shanghai, 200240, China.
| | - Hong-Bin Shen
- Institute of Image Processing and Pattern Recognition, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Key Laboratory of System Control and Information Processing, Ministry of Education of China, Shanghai, 200240, China.
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18
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Harkany T, Tretiakov E, Varela L, Jarc J, Rebernik P, Newbold S, Keimpema E, Verkhratsky A, Horvath T, Romanov R. Molecularly stratified hypothalamic astrocytes are cellular foci for obesity. RESEARCH SQUARE 2024:rs.3.rs-3748581. [PMID: 38405925 PMCID: PMC10889077 DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3748581/v1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
Astrocytes safeguard the homeostasis of the central nervous system1,2. Despite their prominent morphological plasticity under conditions that challenge the brain's adaptive capacity3-5, the classification of astrocytes, and relating their molecular make-up to spatially devolved neuronal operations that specify behavior or metabolism, remained mostly futile6,7. Although it seems unexpected in the era of single-cell biology, the lack of a major advance in stratifying astrocytes under physiological conditions rests on the incompatibility of 'neurocentric' algorithms that rely on stable developmental endpoints, lifelong transcriptional, neurotransmitter, and neuropeptide signatures for classification6-8 with the dynamic functional states, anatomic allocation, and allostatic plasticity of astrocytes1. Simplistically, therefore, astrocytes are still grouped as 'resting' vs. 'reactive', the latter referring to pathological states marked by various inducible genes3,9,10. Here, we introduced a machine learning-based feature recognition algorithm that benefits from the cumulative power of published single-cell RNA-seq data on astrocytes as a reference map to stepwise eliminate pleiotropic and inducible cellular features. For the healthy hypothalamus, this walk-back approach revealed gene regulatory networks (GRNs) that specified subsets of astrocytes, and could be used as landmarking tools for their anatomical assignment. The core molecular censuses retained by astrocyte subsets were sufficient to stratify them by allostatic competence, chiefly their signaling and metabolic interplay with neurons. Particularly, we found differentially expressed mitochondrial genes in insulin-sensing astrocytes and demonstrated their reciprocal signaling with neurons that work antagonistically within the food intake circuitry. As a proof-of-concept, we showed that disrupting Mfn2 expression in astrocytes reduced their ability to support dynamic circuit reorganization, a time-locked feature of satiety in the hypothalamus, thus leading to obesity in mice. Overall, our results suggest that astrocytes in the healthy brain are fundamentally more heterogeneous than previously thought and topologically mirror the specificity of local neurocircuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tibor Harkany
- Center for Brain Research, Medical University of Vienna
| | | | | | - Jasna Jarc
- Center for Brain Research, Medical University of Vienna
| | | | | | - Erik Keimpema
- Medical University of Vienna, Center for Brain Research
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19
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Gardner EE, Earlie EM, Li K, Thomas J, Hubisz MJ, Stein BD, Zhang C, Cantley LC, Laughney AM, Varmus H. Lineage-specific intolerance to oncogenic drivers restricts histological transformation. Science 2024; 383:eadj1415. [PMID: 38330136 PMCID: PMC11155264 DOI: 10.1126/science.adj1415] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/23/2023] [Accepted: 12/08/2023] [Indexed: 02/10/2024]
Abstract
Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC) are thought to originate from different epithelial cell types in the lung. Intriguingly, LUAD can histologically transform into SCLC after treatment with targeted therapies. In this study, we designed models to follow the conversion of LUAD to SCLC and found that the barrier to histological transformation converges on tolerance to Myc, which we implicate as a lineage-specific driver of the pulmonary neuroendocrine cell. Histological transformations are frequently accompanied by activation of the Akt pathway. Manipulating this pathway permitted tolerance to Myc as an oncogenic driver, producing rare, stem-like cells that transcriptionally resemble the pulmonary basal lineage. These findings suggest that histological transformation may require the plasticity inherent to the basal stem cell, enabling tolerance to previously incompatible oncogenic driver programs.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ethan M. Earlie
- Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Department of Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
| | - Kate Li
- Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
| | - Jerin Thomas
- Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
| | - Melissa J. Hubisz
- Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Department of Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Bioinformatics Facility, Institute of Biotechnology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
| | - Benjamin D. Stein
- Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine
| | - Chen Zhang
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
| | - Lewis C. Cantley
- Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine
| | - Ashley M. Laughney
- Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Department of Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
| | - Harold Varmus
- Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
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20
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Liu Y, Huang K, Chen W. Resolving cellular dynamics using single-cell temporal transcriptomics. Curr Opin Biotechnol 2024; 85:103060. [PMID: 38194753 DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2023.103060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2023] [Revised: 12/04/2023] [Accepted: 12/10/2023] [Indexed: 01/11/2024]
Abstract
Cellular dynamics, the transition of a cell from one state to another, is central to understanding developmental processes and disease progression. Single-cell transcriptomics has been pushing the frontiers of cellular dynamics studies into a genome-wide and single-cell level. While most single-cell RNA sequencing approaches are disruptive and only provide a snapshot of cell states, the dynamics of a cell could be reconstructed by either exploiting temporal information hiding in the transcriptomics data or integrating additional information. In this review, we describe these approaches, highlighting their underlying principles, key assumptions, and the rationality to interpret the results as models. We also discuss the recently emerging nondisruptive live-cell transcriptomics methods, which are highly complementary to the computational models for their assumption-free nature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yifei Liu
- Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Kai Huang
- Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Wanze Chen
- Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
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21
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Sullivan DK, Min KHJ, Hjörleifsson KE, Luebbert L, Holley G, Moses L, Gustafsson J, Bray NL, Pimentel H, Booeshaghi AS, Melsted P, Pachter L. kallisto, bustools, and kb-python for quantifying bulk, single-cell, and single-nucleus RNA-seq. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2023.11.21.568164. [PMID: 38045414 PMCID: PMC10690192 DOI: 10.1101/2023.11.21.568164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/05/2023]
Abstract
The term "RNA-seq" refers to a collection of assays based on sequencing experiments that involve quantifying RNA species from bulk tissue, from single cells, or from single nuclei. The kallisto, bustools, and kb-python programs are free, open-source software tools for performing this analysis that together can produce gene expression quantification from raw sequencing reads. The quantifications can be individualized for multiple cells, multiple samples, or both. Additionally, these tools allow gene expression values to be classified as originating from nascent RNA species or mature RNA species, making this workflow amenable to both cell-based and nucleus-based assays. This protocol describes in detail how to use kallisto and bustools in conjunction with a wrapper, kb-python, to preprocess RNA-seq data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Delaney K Sullivan
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
- UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | | | | | - Laura Luebbert
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
| | | | - Lambda Moses
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
| | | | - Nicolas L Bray
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
| | - Harold Pimentel
- Department of Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
- Department of Computational Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
- Department of Human Genetics, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - A Sina Booeshaghi
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
- School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Páll Melsted
- deCODE Genetics/Amgen Inc., Reykjavik, Iceland
- School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
| | - Lior Pachter
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
- Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
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22
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Lederer AR, Leonardi M, Talamanca L, Herrera A, Droin C, Khven I, Carvalho HJF, Valente A, Mantes AD, Arabí PM, Pinello L, Naef F, Manno GL. Statistical inference with a manifold-constrained RNA velocity model uncovers cell cycle speed modulations. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.01.18.576093. [PMID: 38328127 PMCID: PMC10849531 DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.18.576093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/09/2024]
Abstract
Across a range of biological processes, cells undergo coordinated changes in gene expression, resulting in transcriptome dynamics that unfold within a low-dimensional manifold. Single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) only measures temporal snapshots of gene expression. However, information on the underlying low-dimensional dynamics can be extracted using RNA velocity, which models unspliced and spliced RNA abundances to estimate the rate of change of gene expression. Available RNA velocity algorithms can be fragile and rely on heuristics that lack statistical control. Moreover, the estimated vector field is not dynamically consistent with the traversed gene expression manifold. Here, we develop a generative model of RNA velocity and a Bayesian inference approach that solves these problems. Our model couples velocity field and manifold estimation in a reformulated, unified framework, so as to coherently identify the parameters of an autonomous dynamical system. Focusing on the cell cycle, we implemented VeloCycle to study gene regulation dynamics on one-dimensional periodic manifolds and validated using live-imaging its ability to infer actual cell cycle periods. We benchmarked RNA velocity inference with sensitivity analyses and demonstrated one- and multiple-sample testing. We also conducted Markov chain Monte Carlo inference on the model, uncovering key relationships between gene-specific kinetics and our gene-independent velocity estimate. Finally, we applied VeloCycle to in vivo samples and in vitro genome-wide Perturb-seq, revealing regionally-defined proliferation modes in neural progenitors and the effect of gene knockdowns on cell cycle speed. Ultimately, VeloCycle expands the scRNA-seq analysis toolkit with a modular and statistically rigorous RNA velocity inference framework.
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23
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Cui H, Maan H, Vladoiu MC, Zhang J, Taylor MD, Wang B. DeepVelo: deep learning extends RNA velocity to multi-lineage systems with cell-specific kinetics. Genome Biol 2024; 25:27. [PMID: 38243313 PMCID: PMC10799431 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-03148-9] [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: 09/26/2023] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 01/21/2024] Open
Abstract
Existing RNA velocity estimation methods strongly rely on predefined dynamics and cell-agnostic constant transcriptional kinetic rates, assumptions often violated in complex and heterogeneous single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data. Using a graph convolution network, DeepVelo overcomes these limitations by generalizing RNA velocity to cell populations containing time-dependent kinetics and multiple lineages. DeepVelo infers time-varying cellular rates of transcription, splicing, and degradation, recovers each cell's stage in the differentiation process, and detects functionally relevant driver genes regulating these processes. Application to various developmental and pathogenic processes demonstrates DeepVelo's capacity to study complex differentiation and lineage decision events in heterogeneous scRNA-seq data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Haotian Cui
- Peter Munk Cardiac Center, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Vector Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Hassaan Maan
- Peter Munk Cardiac Center, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Vector Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Maria C Vladoiu
- Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Jiao Zhang
- The Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumor Research Centre, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Michael D Taylor
- The Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumor Research Centre, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
- Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, TX, USA
| | - Bo Wang
- Peter Munk Cardiac Center, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- Vector Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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24
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Kirschenbaum D, Xie K, Ingelfinger F, Katzenelenbogen Y, Abadie K, Look T, Sheban F, Phan TS, Li B, Zwicky P, Yofe I, David E, Mazuz K, Hou J, Chen Y, Shaim H, Shanley M, Becker S, Qian J, Colonna M, Ginhoux F, Rezvani K, Theis FJ, Yosef N, Weiss T, Weiner A, Amit I. Time-resolved single-cell transcriptomics defines immune trajectories in glioblastoma. Cell 2024; 187:149-165.e23. [PMID: 38134933 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.11.032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2023] [Revised: 09/15/2023] [Accepted: 11/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023]
Abstract
Deciphering the cell-state transitions underlying immune adaptation across time is fundamental for advancing biology. Empirical in vivo genomic technologies that capture cellular dynamics are currently lacking. We present Zman-seq, a single-cell technology recording transcriptomic dynamics across time by introducing time stamps into circulating immune cells, tracking them in tissues for days. Applying Zman-seq resolved cell-state and molecular trajectories of the dysfunctional immune microenvironment in glioblastoma. Within 24 hours of tumor infiltration, cytotoxic natural killer cells transitioned to a dysfunctional program regulated by TGFB1 signaling. Infiltrating monocytes differentiated into immunosuppressive macrophages, characterized by the upregulation of suppressive myeloid checkpoints Trem2, Il18bp, and Arg1, over 36 to 48 hours. Treatment with an antagonistic anti-TREM2 antibody reshaped the tumor microenvironment by redirecting the monocyte trajectory toward pro-inflammatory macrophages. Zman-seq is a broadly applicable technology, enabling empirical measurements of differentiation trajectories, which can enhance the development of more efficacious immunotherapies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Kirschenbaum
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Ken Xie
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Florian Ingelfinger
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | | | - Kathleen Abadie
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Thomas Look
- Department of Neurology, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich and University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Fadi Sheban
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Truong San Phan
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Baoguo Li
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Pascale Zwicky
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Ido Yofe
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Eyal David
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Kfir Mazuz
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Jinchao Hou
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA
| | - Yun Chen
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA
| | - Hila Shaim
- Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Mayra Shanley
- Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Soeren Becker
- Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany
| | - Jiawen Qian
- Shanghai Institute of Immunology, Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Marco Colonna
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA
| | - Florent Ginhoux
- Shanghai Institute of Immunology, Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China; Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore 138648, Singapore; Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore 138648, Singapore
| | - Katayoun Rezvani
- Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Fabian J Theis
- Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany
| | - Nir Yosef
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel; Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA; Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Tobias Weiss
- Department of Neurology, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich and University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Assaf Weiner
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel
| | - Ido Amit
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel.
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25
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Li S, Zhang P, Chen W, Ye L, Brannan KW, Le NT, Abe JI, Cooke JP, Wang G. A relay velocity model infers cell-dependent RNA velocity. Nat Biotechnol 2024; 42:99-108. [PMID: 37012448 PMCID: PMC10545816 DOI: 10.1038/s41587-023-01728-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 02/28/2023] [Indexed: 04/05/2023]
Abstract
RNA velocity provides an approach for inferring cellular state transitions from single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data. Conventional RNA velocity models infer universal kinetics from all cells in an scRNA-seq experiment, resulting in unpredictable performance in experiments with multi-stage and/or multi-lineage transition of cell states where the assumption of the same kinetic rates for all cells no longer holds. Here we present cellDancer, a scalable deep neural network that locally infers velocity for each cell from its neighbors and then relays a series of local velocities to provide single-cell resolution inference of velocity kinetics. In the simulation benchmark, cellDancer shows robust performance in multiple kinetic regimes, high dropout ratio datasets and sparse datasets. We show that cellDancer overcomes the limitations of existing RNA velocity models in modeling erythroid maturation and hippocampus development. Moreover, cellDancer provides cell-specific predictions of transcription, splicing and degradation rates, which we identify as potential indicators of cell fate in the mouse pancreas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shengyu Li
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Center for RNA Therapeutics, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Pengzhi Zhang
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Center for RNA Therapeutics, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Weiqing Chen
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Physiology, Biophysics & Systems Biology, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - Lingqun Ye
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Center for RNA Therapeutics, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
| | - Kristopher W Brannan
- Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Center for RNA Therapeutics, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Nhat-Tu Le
- Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Jun-Ichi Abe
- Department of Cardiology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
| | - John P Cooke
- Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
| | - Guangyu Wang
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA.
- Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA.
- Center for RNA Therapeutics, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA.
- Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, NY, USA.
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26
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Gayoso A, Weiler P, Lotfollahi M, Klein D, Hong J, Streets A, Theis FJ, Yosef N. Deep generative modeling of transcriptional dynamics for RNA velocity analysis in single cells. Nat Methods 2024; 21:50-59. [PMID: 37735568 PMCID: PMC10776389 DOI: 10.1038/s41592-023-01994-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2022] [Accepted: 08/08/2023] [Indexed: 09/23/2023]
Abstract
RNA velocity has been rapidly adopted to guide interpretation of transcriptional dynamics in snapshot single-cell data; however, current approaches for estimating RNA velocity lack effective strategies for quantifying uncertainty and determining the overall applicability to the system of interest. Here, we present veloVI (velocity variational inference), a deep generative modeling framework for estimating RNA velocity. veloVI learns a gene-specific dynamical model of RNA metabolism and provides a transcriptome-wide quantification of velocity uncertainty. We show that veloVI compares favorably to previous approaches with respect to goodness of fit, consistency across transcriptionally similar cells and stability across preprocessing pipelines for quantifying RNA abundance. Further, we demonstrate that veloVI's posterior velocity uncertainty can be used to assess whether velocity analysis is appropriate for a given dataset. Finally, we highlight veloVI as a flexible framework for modeling transcriptional dynamics by adapting the underlying dynamical model to use time-dependent transcription rates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam Gayoso
- Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Philipp Weiler
- Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Center Munich, Munich, Germany
- Department of Mathematics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Mohammad Lotfollahi
- Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Center Munich, Munich, Germany
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
| | - Dominik Klein
- Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Center Munich, Munich, Germany
- Department of Mathematics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Justin Hong
- Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
- Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Aaron Streets
- Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Fabian J Theis
- Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Center Munich, Munich, Germany.
- Department of Mathematics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
- TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
| | - Nir Yosef
- Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
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27
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Toth A, Kannan P, Snowball J, Kofron M, Wayman JA, Bridges JP, Miraldi ER, Swarr D, Zacharias WJ. Alveolar epithelial progenitor cells require Nkx2-1 to maintain progenitor-specific epigenomic state during lung homeostasis and regeneration. Nat Commun 2023; 14:8452. [PMID: 38114516 PMCID: PMC10775890 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44184-0] [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: 09/22/2022] [Accepted: 12/04/2023] [Indexed: 12/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Lung epithelial regeneration after acute injury requires coordination cellular coordination to pattern the morphologically complex alveolar gas exchange surface. During adult lung regeneration, Wnt-responsive alveolar epithelial progenitor (AEP) cells, a subset of alveolar type 2 (AT2) cells, proliferate and transition to alveolar type 1 (AT1) cells. Here, we report a refined primary murine alveolar organoid, which recapitulates critical aspects of in vivo regeneration. Paired scRNAseq and scATACseq followed by transcriptional regulatory network (TRN) analysis identified two AT1 transition states driven by distinct regulatory networks controlled in part by differential activity of Nkx2-1. Genetic ablation of Nkx2-1 in AEP-derived organoids was sufficient to cause transition to a proliferative stressed Krt8+ state, and AEP-specific deletion of Nkx2-1 in adult mice led to rapid loss of progenitor state and uncontrolled growth of Krt8+ cells. Together, these data implicate dynamic epigenetic maintenance via Nkx2-1 as central to the control of facultative progenitor activity in AEPs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Toth
- Perinatal Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Pulmonary Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Medical Scientist Training Program, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Molecular and Developmental Biology Graduate Program, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - Paranthaman Kannan
- Perinatal Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Pulmonary Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - John Snowball
- Perinatal Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Pulmonary Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - Matthew Kofron
- Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Bio-Imaging and Analysis Facility, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - Joseph A Wayman
- Division of Immunology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - James P Bridges
- Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado, USA
- Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, National Jewish Health, Denver, Colorado, USA
| | - Emily R Miraldi
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Immunology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - Daniel Swarr
- Perinatal Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Division of Pulmonary Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - William J Zacharias
- Perinatal Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
- Division of Pulmonary Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
- Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
- Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
- Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
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28
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Sidiropoulos DN, Ho WJ, Jaffee EM, Kagohara LT, Fertig EJ. Systems immunology spanning tumors, lymph nodes, and periphery. CELL REPORTS METHODS 2023; 3:100670. [PMID: 38086385 PMCID: PMC10753389 DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2023.100670] [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: 05/06/2023] [Revised: 10/20/2023] [Accepted: 11/17/2023] [Indexed: 12/21/2023]
Abstract
The immune system defines a complex network of tissues and cell types that orchestrate responses across the body in a dynamic manner. The local and systemic interactions between immune and cancer cells contribute to disease progression. Lymphocytes are activated in lymph nodes, traffic through the periphery, and impact cancer progression through their interactions with tumor cells. As a result, therapeutic response and resistance are mediated across tissues, and a comprehensive understanding of lymphocyte dynamics requires a systems-level approach. In this review, we highlight experimental and computational methods that can leverage the study of leukocyte trafficking through an immunomics lens and reveal how adaptive immunity shapes cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dimitrios N Sidiropoulos
- Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Johns Hopkins Convergence Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, USA; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Immunotherapy, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Won Jin Ho
- Johns Hopkins Convergence Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, USA; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Immunotherapy, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Elizabeth M Jaffee
- Johns Hopkins Convergence Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, USA; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Immunotherapy, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Luciane T Kagohara
- Johns Hopkins Convergence Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, USA; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Immunotherapy, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
| | - Elana J Fertig
- Johns Hopkins Convergence Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, USA; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Immunotherapy, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
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29
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Weigert M, Li Y, Zhu L, Eckart H, Bajwa P, Krishnan R, Ackroyd S, Lastra RR, Bilecz A, Basu A, Lengyel E, Chen M. A Cellular atlas of the human fallopian tube reveals the metamorphosis of secretory epithelial cells during the menstrual cycle and menopause. MEDRXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR HEALTH SCIENCES 2023:2023.11.22.23298470. [PMID: 38045369 PMCID: PMC10690352 DOI: 10.1101/2023.11.22.23298470] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/05/2023]
Abstract
The fallopian tube, connecting the uterus with the ovary, is a dynamic organ that undergoes cyclical changes and is the site of several diseases, including serous cancer. Here, we use single-cell technologies to construct a comprehensive cell map of healthy pre-menopausal fallopian tubes, capturing the impact of the menstrual cycle and menopause on different fallopian tube cells at the molecular level. The comparative analysis between pre- and post-menopausal fallopian tubes reveals substantial shifts in cellular abundance and gene expression patterns, highlighting the physiological changes associated with menopause. Further investigations into menstrual cycle phases illuminate distinct molecular states in secretory epithelial cells caused by hormonal fluctuations. The markers we identified characterizing secretory epithelial cells provide a valuable tool for classifying ovarian cancer subtypes. Graphical summary Graphical summary of results. During the proliferative phase (estrogen high ) of the menstrual cycle, SE2 cells (OVGP1 + ) dominate the fallopian tube (FT) epithelium, while SE1 cells (OVGP1 - ) dominate the epithelium during the secretory phase. Though estrogen levels decrease during menopause, SE post-cells (OVGP1 + , CXCL2 + ) make up most of the FT epithelium.
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30
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Miles CE, McKinley SA, Ding F, Lehoucq RB. Inferring stochastic rates from heterogeneous snapshots of particle positions. ARXIV 2023:arXiv:2311.04880v1. [PMID: 37986720 PMCID: PMC10659442] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2023]
Abstract
Many imaging techniques for biological systems - like fixation of cells coupled with fluorescence microscopy - provide sharp spatial resolution in reporting locations of individuals at a single moment in time but also destroy the dynamics they intend to capture. These snapshot observations contain no information about individual trajectories, but still encode information about movement and demographic dynamics, especially when combined with a well-motivated biophysical model. The relationship between spatially evolving populations and single-moment representations of their collective locations is well-established with partial differential equations (PDEs) and their inverse problems. However, experimental data is commonly a set of locations whose number is insufficient to approximate a continuous-in-space PDE solution. Here, motivated by popular subcellular imaging data of gene expression, we embrace the stochastic nature of the data and investigate the mathematical foundations of parametrically inferring demographic rates from snapshots of particles undergoing birth, diffusion, and death in a nuclear or cellular domain. Toward inference, we rigorously derive a connection between individual particle paths and their presentation as a Poisson spatial process. Using this framework, we investigate the properties of the resulting inverse problem and study factors that affect quality of inference. One pervasive feature of this experimental regime is the presence of cell-to-cell heterogeneity. Rather than being a hindrance, we show that cell-to-cell geometric heterogeneity can increase the quality of inference on dynamics for certain parameter regimes. Altogether, the results serve as a basis for more detailed investigations of subcellular spatial patterns of RNA molecules and other stochastically evolving populations that can only be observed for single instants in their time evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Fangyuan Ding
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine
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31
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Kholodenko BN, Kolch W, Rukhlenko OS. Reversing pathological cell states: the road less travelled can extend the therapeutic horizon. Trends Cell Biol 2023; 33:913-923. [PMID: 37263821 PMCID: PMC10593090 DOI: 10.1016/j.tcb.2023.04.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Revised: 04/15/2023] [Accepted: 04/17/2023] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
Acquisition of omics data advances at a formidable pace. Yet, our ability to utilize these data to control cell phenotypes and design interventions that reverse pathological states lags behind. Here, we posit that cell states are determined by core networks that control cell-wide networks. To steer cell fate decisions, core networks connecting genotype to phenotype must be reconstructed and understood. A recent method, cell state transition assessment and regulation (cSTAR), applies perturbation biology to quantify causal connections and mechanistically models how core networks influence cell phenotypes. cSTAR models are akin to digital cell twins enabling us to purposefully convert pathological states back to physiologically normal states. While this capability has a range of applications, here we discuss reverting oncogenic transformation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Boris N Kholodenko
- Systems Biology Ireland, School of Medicine and Medical Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; Conway Institute of Biomolecular & Biomedical Research, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; Department of Pharmacology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
| | - Walter Kolch
- Systems Biology Ireland, School of Medicine and Medical Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; Conway Institute of Biomolecular & Biomedical Research, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
| | - Oleksii S Rukhlenko
- Systems Biology Ireland, School of Medicine and Medical Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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32
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Zheng SC, Stein-O’Brien G, Boukas L, Goff LA, Hansen KD. Pumping the brakes on RNA velocity by understanding and interpreting RNA velocity estimates. Genome Biol 2023; 24:246. [PMID: 37885016 PMCID: PMC10601342 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-03065-x] [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: 10/31/2022] [Accepted: 09/19/2023] [Indexed: 10/28/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND RNA velocity analysis of single cells offers the potential to predict temporal dynamics from gene expression. In many systems, RNA velocity has been observed to produce a vector field that qualitatively reflects known features of the system. However, the limitations of RNA velocity estimates are still not well understood. RESULTS We analyze the impact of different steps in the RNA velocity workflow on direction and speed. We consider both high-dimensional velocity estimates and low-dimensional velocity vector fields mapped onto an embedding. We conclude the transition probability method for mapping velocity estimates onto an embedding is effectively interpolating in the embedding space. Our findings reveal a significant dependence of the RNA velocity workflow on smoothing via the k-nearest-neighbors (k-NN) graph of the observed data. This reliance results in considerable estimation errors for both direction and speed in both high- and low-dimensional settings when the k-NN graph fails to accurately represent the true data structure; this is an unknown feature of real data. RNA velocity performs poorly at estimating speed in both low- and high-dimensional spaces, except in very low noise settings. We introduce a novel quality measure that can identify when RNA velocity should not be used. CONCLUSIONS Our findings emphasize the importance of choices in the RNA velocity workflow and highlight critical limitations of data analysis. We advise against over-interpreting expression dynamics using RNA velocity, particularly in terms of speed. Finally, we emphasize that the use of RNA velocity in assessing the correctness of a low-dimensional embedding is circular.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shijie C. Zheng
- Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD USA
| | - Genevieve Stein-O’Brien
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA
- Kavli Neurodiscovery Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD USA
- Quantitative Sciences Division, Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA
| | - Leandros Boukas
- Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD USA
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA
| | - Loyal A. Goff
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA
- Kavli Neurodiscovery Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD USA
| | - Kasper D. Hansen
- Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD USA
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA
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33
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Gorin G, Vastola JJ, Pachter L. Studying stochastic systems biology of the cell with single-cell genomics data. Cell Syst 2023; 14:822-843.e22. [PMID: 37751736 PMCID: PMC10725240 DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2023.08.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2023] [Revised: 08/16/2023] [Accepted: 08/25/2023] [Indexed: 09/28/2023]
Abstract
Recent experimental developments in genome-wide RNA quantification hold considerable promise for systems biology. However, rigorously probing the biology of living cells requires a unified mathematical framework that accounts for single-molecule biological stochasticity in the context of technical variation associated with genomics assays. We review models for a variety of RNA transcription processes, as well as the encapsulation and library construction steps of microfluidics-based single-cell RNA sequencing, and present a framework to integrate these phenomena by the manipulation of generating functions. Finally, we use simulated scenarios and biological data to illustrate the implications and applications of the approach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gennady Gorin
- Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
| | - John J Vastola
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Lior Pachter
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA; Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
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34
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Chitra U, Arnold BJ, Sarkar H, Ma C, Lopez-Darwin S, Sanno K, Raphael BJ. Mapping the topography of spatial gene expression with interpretable deep learning. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.10.10.561757. [PMID: 37873258 PMCID: PMC10592770 DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.10.561757] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2023]
Abstract
Spatially resolved transcriptomics technologies provide high-throughput measurements of gene expression in a tissue slice, but the sparsity of this data complicates the analysis of spatial gene expression patterns such as gene expression gradients. We address these issues by deriving a topographic map of a tissue slice-analogous to a map of elevation in a landscape-using a novel quantity called the isodepth. Contours of constant isodepth enclose spatial domains with distinct cell type composition, while gradients of the isodepth indicate spatial directions of maximum change in gene expression. We develop GASTON, an unsupervised and interpretable deep learning algorithm that simultaneously learns the isodepth, spatial gene expression gradients, and piecewise linear functions of the isodepth that model both continuous gradients and discontinuous spatial variation in the expression of individual genes. We validate GASTON by showing that it accurately identifies spatial domains and marker genes across several biological systems. In SRT data from the brain, GASTON reveals gradients of neuronal differentiation and firing, and in SRT data from a tumor sample, GASTON infers gradients of metabolic activity and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related gene expression in the tumor microenvironment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Uthsav Chitra
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Brian J. Arnold
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Center for Statistics and Machine Learning, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Hirak Sarkar
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Ludwig Cancer Institute, Princeton Branch, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Cong Ma
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | | | - Kohei Sanno
- Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Center for Statistics and Machine Learning, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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35
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Tseng KC, Crump JG. Craniofacial developmental biology in the single-cell era. Development 2023; 150:dev202077. [PMID: 37812056 PMCID: PMC10617621 DOI: 10.1242/dev.202077] [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: 10/10/2023]
Abstract
The evolution of a unique craniofacial complex in vertebrates made possible new ways of breathing, eating, communicating and sensing the environment. The head and face develop through interactions of all three germ layers, the endoderm, ectoderm and mesoderm, as well as the so-called fourth germ layer, the cranial neural crest. Over a century of experimental embryology and genetics have revealed an incredible diversity of cell types derived from each germ layer, signaling pathways and genes that coordinate craniofacial development, and how changes to these underlie human disease and vertebrate evolution. Yet for many diseases and congenital anomalies, we have an incomplete picture of the causative genomic changes, in particular how alterations to the non-coding genome might affect craniofacial gene expression. Emerging genomics and single-cell technologies provide an opportunity to obtain a more holistic view of the genes and gene regulatory elements orchestrating craniofacial development across vertebrates. These single-cell studies generate novel hypotheses that can be experimentally validated in vivo. In this Review, we highlight recent advances in single-cell studies of diverse craniofacial structures, as well as potential pitfalls and the need for extensive in vivo validation. We discuss how these studies inform the developmental sources and regulation of head structures, bringing new insights into the etiology of structural birth anomalies that affect the vertebrate head.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kuo-Chang Tseng
- Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - J. Gage Crump
- Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
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36
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Luo Y, Liang H. Single-cell dissection of tumor microenvironmental response and resistance to cancer therapy. Trends Genet 2023; 39:758-772. [PMID: 37658004 PMCID: PMC10529478 DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2023.07.005] [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: 05/25/2023] [Revised: 07/13/2023] [Accepted: 07/17/2023] [Indexed: 09/03/2023]
Abstract
Cancer treatment strategies have evolved significantly over the years, with chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy as major pillars. Each modality leads to unique treatment outcomes by interacting with the tumor microenvironment (TME), which imposes a fundamental selective pressure on cancer progression. The advent of single-cell profiling technologies has revolutionized our understanding of the intricate and heterogeneous nature of the TME at an unprecedented resolution. This review delves into the commonalities and differential manifestations of how cancer therapies reshape the microenvironment in diverse cancer types. We highlight how groundbreaking immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) strategies alone or in combination with tumor-targeting treatments are endowed with comprehensive mechanistic insights when decoded at the single-cell level, aiming to drive forward future research directions on personalized treatments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yikai Luo
- Graduate Program in Quantitative and Computational Biosciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Han Liang
- Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Systems Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Graduate Program in Quantitative and Computational Biosciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
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37
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Farrell S, Mani M, Goyal S. Inferring single-cell transcriptomic dynamics with structured latent gene expression dynamics. CELL REPORTS METHODS 2023; 3:100581. [PMID: 37708894 PMCID: PMC10545944 DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2023.100581] [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: 01/11/2023] [Revised: 06/16/2023] [Accepted: 08/18/2023] [Indexed: 09/16/2023]
Abstract
Gene expression dynamics provide directional information for trajectory inference from single-cell RNA sequencing data. Traditional approaches compute RNA velocity using strict modeling assumptions about transcription and splicing of RNA. This can fail in scenarios where multiple lineages have distinct gene dynamics or where rates of transcription and splicing are time dependent. We present "LatentVelo," an approach to compute a low-dimensional representation of gene dynamics with deep learning. LatentVelo embeds cells into a latent space with a variational autoencoder and models differentiation dynamics on this "dynamics-based" latent space with neural ordinary differential equations. LatentVelo infers a latent regulatory state that controls the dynamics of an individual cell to model multiple lineages. LatentVelo can predict latent trajectories, describing the inferred developmental path for individual cells rather than just local RNA velocity vectors. The dynamics-based embedding batch corrects cell states and velocities, outperforming comparable autoencoder batch correction methods that do not consider gene expression dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Spencer Farrell
- Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S1A7, Canada.
| | - Madhav Mani
- Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA; NSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA; Department of Molecular Biosciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA
| | - Sidhartha Goyal
- Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S1A7, Canada; Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S3G9, Canada.
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38
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Jackson CA, Beheler-Amass M, Tjärnberg A, Suresh I, Hickey ASM, Bonneau R, Gresham D. Simultaneous estimation of gene regulatory network structure and RNA kinetics from single cell gene expression. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.09.21.558277. [PMID: 37790443 PMCID: PMC10542544 DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.21.558277] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/05/2023]
Abstract
Cells respond to environmental and developmental stimuli by remodeling their transcriptomes through regulation of both mRNA transcription and mRNA decay. A central goal of biology is identifying the global set of regulatory relationships between factors that control mRNA production and degradation and their target transcripts and construct a predictive model of gene expression. Regulatory relationships are typically identified using transcriptome measurements and causal inference algorithms. RNA kinetic parameters are determined experimentally by employing run-on or metabolic labeling (e.g. 4-thiouracil) methods that allow transcription and decay rates to be separately measured. Here, we develop a deep learning model, trained with single-cell RNA-seq data, that both infers causal regulatory relationships and estimates RNA kinetic parameters. The resulting in silico model predicts future gene expression states and can be perturbed to simulate the effect of transcription factor changes. We acquired model training data by sequencing the transcriptomes of 175,000 individual Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells that were subject to an external perturbation and continuously sampled over a one hour period. The rate of change for each transcript was calculated on a per-cell basis to estimate RNA velocity. We then trained a deep learning model with transcriptome and RNA velocity data to calculate time-dependent estimates of mRNA production and decay rates. By separating RNA velocity into transcription and decay rates, we show that rapamycin treatment causes existing ribosomal protein transcripts to be rapidly destabilized, while production of new transcripts gradually slows over the course of an hour. The neural network framework we present is designed to explicitly model causal regulatory relationships between transcription factors and their genes, and shows superior performance to existing models on the basis of recovery of known regulatory relationships. We validated the predictive power of the model by perturbing transcription factors in silico and comparing transcriptome-wide effects with experimental data. Our study represents the first step in constructing a complete, predictive, biophysical model of gene expression regulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christopher A Jackson
- Center For Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Maggie Beheler-Amass
- Center For Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Andreas Tjärnberg
- Center For Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Ina Suresh
- Center For Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Angela Shang-mei Hickey
- Center For Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | | | - David Gresham
- Center For Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
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39
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Chari T, Gorin G, Pachter L. Biophysically Interpretable Inference of Cell Types from Multimodal Sequencing Data. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.09.17.558131. [PMID: 37745403 PMCID: PMC10516047 DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.17.558131] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/26/2023]
Abstract
Multimodal, single-cell genomics technologies enable simultaneous capture of multiple facets of DNA and RNA processing in the cell. This creates opportunities for transcriptome-wide, mechanistic studies of cellular processing in heterogeneous cell types, with applications ranging from inferring kinetic differences between cells, to the role of stochasticity in driving heterogeneity. However, current methods for determining cell types or 'clusters' present in multimodal data often rely on ad hoc or independent treatment of modalities, and assumptions ignoring inherent properties of the count data. To enable interpretable and consistent cell cluster determination from multimodal data, we present meK-Means (mechanistic K-Means) which integrates modalities and learns underlying, shared biophysical states through a unifying model of transcription. In particular, we demonstrate how meK-Means can be used to cluster cells from unspliced and spliced mRNA count modalities. By utilizing the causal, physical relationships underlying these modalities, we identify shared transcriptional kinetics across cells, which induce the observed gene expression profiles, and provide an alternative definition for 'clusters' through the governing parameters of cellular processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tara Chari
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
| | - Gennady Gorin
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
| | - Lior Pachter
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
- Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
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40
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Li H, Zhang Z, Squires M, Chen X, Zhang X. scMultiSim: simulation of single cell multi-omics and spatial data guided by gene regulatory networks and cell-cell interactions. RESEARCH SQUARE 2023:rs.3.rs-3301625. [PMID: 37790516 PMCID: PMC10543280 DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3301625/v1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/05/2023]
Abstract
Simulated single-cell data is essential for designing and evaluating computational methods in the absence of experimental ground truth. Existing simulators typically focus on modeling one or two specific biological factors or mechanisms that affect the output data, which limits their capacity to simulate the complexity and multi-modality in real data. Here, we present scMultiSim, an in silico simulator that generates multi-modal single-cell data, including gene expression, chromatin accessibility, RNA velocity, and spatial cell locations while accounting for the relationships between modalities. scMultiSim jointly models various biological factors that affect the output data, including cell identity, within-cell gene regulatory networks (GRNs), cell-cell interactions (CCIs), and chromatin accessibility, hile also incorporating technical noises. Moreover, it allows users to adjust each factor's effect easily. We validated scMultiSim's simulated biological effects and demonstrated its applications by benchmarking a wide range of computational tasks, including multi-modal and multi-batch data integration, RNA velocity estimation, GRN inference and CCI inference using spatially resolved gene expression data, many of them were not benchmarked before due to the lack of proper tools. Compared to existing simulators, scMultiSim can benchmark a much broader range of existing computational problems and even new potential tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hechen Li
- Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
| | - Ziqi Zhang
- Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
| | | | - Xi Chen
- Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
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41
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Zhang Y, Khalilitousi M(S, Park YP. Unraveling dynamically encoded latent transcriptomic patterns in pancreatic cancer cells by topic modeling. CELL GENOMICS 2023; 3:100388. [PMID: 37719139 PMCID: PMC10504675 DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100388] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/11/2023] [Revised: 05/27/2023] [Accepted: 07/31/2023] [Indexed: 09/19/2023]
Abstract
Building a comprehensive topic model has become an important research tool in single-cell genomics. With a topic model, we can decompose and ascertain distinctive cell topics shared across multiple cells, and the gene programs implicated by each topic can later serve as a predictive model in translational studies. Here, we present a Bayesian topic model that can uncover short-term RNA velocity patterns from a plethora of spliced and unspliced single-cell RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) counts. We showed that modeling both types of RNA counts can improve robustness in statistical estimation and can reveal new aspects of dynamic changes that can be missed in static analysis. We showcase that our modeling framework can be used to identify statistically significant dynamic gene programs in pancreatic cancer data. Our results discovered that seven dynamic gene programs (topics) are highly correlated with cancer prognosis and generally enrich immune cell types and pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yichen Zhang
- Department of Statistics, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | | | - Yongjin P. Park
- Department of Statistics, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- Department of Molecular Oncology, BC Cancer Research, Part of Provincial Health Care Authority, Vancouver, BC, Canada
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42
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Li X, Poire A, Jeong KJ, Zhang D, Chen G, Sun C, Mills GB. Single-cell trajectory analysis reveals a CD9 positive state to contribute to exit from stem cell-like and embryonic diapause states and transit to drug-resistant states. Cell Death Discov 2023; 9:285. [PMID: 37542044 PMCID: PMC10403509 DOI: 10.1038/s41420-023-01586-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/20/2023] [Revised: 07/12/2023] [Accepted: 07/27/2023] [Indexed: 08/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Bromo- and extra-terminal domain (BET) inhibitors (BETi) have been shown to decrease tumor growth in preclinical models and clinical trials. However, toxicity and rapid emergence of resistance have limited their clinical implementation. To identify state changes underlying acquisition of resistance to the JQ1 BETi, we reanalyzed single-cell RNAseq data from JQ1 sensitive and resistant SUM149 and SUM159 triple-negative breast cancer cell lines. Parental and JQ1-resistant SUM149 and SUM159 exhibited a stem cell-like and embryonic diapause (SCLED) cell state as well as a transitional cell state between the SCLED state that is present in both treatment naïve and JQ1 treated cells, and a number of JQ1 resistant cell states. A transitional cell state transcriptional signature but not a SCLED state transcriptional signature predicted worsened outcomes in basal-like breast cancer patients suggesting that transit from the SCLED state to drug-resistant states contributes to patient outcomes. Entry of SUM149 and SUM159 into the transitional cell state was characterized by elevated expression of the CD9 tetraspanin. Knockdown or inhibition of CD9-sensitized cells to multiple targeted and cytotoxic drugs in vitro. Importantly, CD9 knockdown or blockade sensitized SUM149 to JQ1 in vivo by trapping cells in the SCLED state and limiting transit to resistant cell states. Thus, CD9 appears to be critical for the transition from a SCLED state into treatment-resistant cell states and warrants exploration as a therapeutic target in basal-like breast cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xi Li
- Division of Oncological Sciences Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA.
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430030, Wuhan, China.
| | - Alfonso Poire
- Division of Oncological Sciences Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA
| | - Kang Jin Jeong
- Division of Oncological Sciences Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA
| | - Dong Zhang
- Division of Oncological Sciences Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA
| | - Gang Chen
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430030, Wuhan, China
| | - Chaoyang Sun
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430030, Wuhan, China
| | - Gordon B Mills
- Division of Oncological Sciences Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA
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43
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Abstract
Dimensionality reduction is standard practice for filtering noise and identifying relevant features in large-scale data analyses. In biology, single-cell genomics studies typically begin with reduction to 2 or 3 dimensions to produce "all-in-one" visuals of the data that are amenable to the human eye, and these are subsequently used for qualitative and quantitative exploratory analysis. However, there is little theoretical support for this practice, and we show that extreme dimension reduction, from hundreds or thousands of dimensions to 2, inevitably induces significant distortion of high-dimensional datasets. We therefore examine the practical implications of low-dimensional embedding of single-cell data and find that extensive distortions and inconsistent practices make such embeddings counter-productive for exploratory, biological analyses. In lieu of this, we discuss alternative approaches for conducting targeted embedding and feature exploration to enable hypothesis-driven biological discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tara Chari
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, United States of America
| | - Lior Pachter
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, United States of America
- Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, United States of America
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44
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Heumos L, Schaar AC, Lance C, Litinetskaya A, Drost F, Zappia L, Lücken MD, Strobl DC, Henao J, Curion F, Schiller HB, Theis FJ. Best practices for single-cell analysis across modalities. Nat Rev Genet 2023; 24:550-572. [PMID: 37002403 PMCID: PMC10066026 DOI: 10.1038/s41576-023-00586-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 168] [Impact Index Per Article: 168.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/14/2023] [Indexed: 04/03/2023]
Abstract
Recent advances in single-cell technologies have enabled high-throughput molecular profiling of cells across modalities and locations. Single-cell transcriptomics data can now be complemented by chromatin accessibility, surface protein expression, adaptive immune receptor repertoire profiling and spatial information. The increasing availability of single-cell data across modalities has motivated the development of novel computational methods to help analysts derive biological insights. As the field grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate the vast landscape of tools and analysis steps. Here, we summarize independent benchmarking studies of unimodal and multimodal single-cell analysis across modalities to suggest comprehensive best-practice workflows for the most common analysis steps. Where independent benchmarks are not available, we review and contrast popular methods. Our article serves as an entry point for novices in the field of single-cell (multi-)omic analysis and guides advanced users to the most recent best practices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lukas Heumos
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- Institute of Lung Health and Immunity and Comprehensive Pneumology Center, Helmholtz Munich; Member of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Munich, Germany
- TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Anna C Schaar
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- Department of Mathematics, School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany
- Munich Center for Machine Learning, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany
| | - Christopher Lance
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- Department of Paediatrics, Dr von Hauner Children's Hospital, University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
| | - Anastasia Litinetskaya
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- Department of Mathematics, School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany
| | - Felix Drost
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Luke Zappia
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- Department of Mathematics, School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany
| | - Malte D Lücken
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- Institute of Lung Health and Immunity, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Daniel C Strobl
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
- Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry, School of Medicine, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
- TranslaTUM, Center for Translational Cancer Research, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Juan Henao
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Fabiola Curion
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany
- Department of Mathematics, School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany
| | - Herbert B Schiller
- Institute of Lung Health and Immunity and Comprehensive Pneumology Center, Helmholtz Munich; Member of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Munich, Germany
| | - Fabian J Theis
- Institute of Computational Biology, Department of Computational Health, Helmholtz Munich, Munich, Germany.
- TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
- Department of Mathematics, School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany.
- Munich Center for Machine Learning, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany.
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45
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Bocci F, Jia D, Nie Q, Jolly MK, Onuchic J. Theoretical and computational tools to model multistable gene regulatory networks. ARXIV 2023:arXiv:2302.07401v2. [PMID: 36824430 PMCID: PMC9949162] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/25/2023]
Abstract
The last decade has witnessed a surge of theoretical and computational models to describe the dynamics of complex gene regulatory networks, and how these interactions can give rise to multistable and heterogeneous cell populations. As the use of theoretical modeling to describe genetic and biochemical circuits becomes more widespread, theoreticians with mathematical and physical backgrounds routinely apply concepts from statistical physics, non-linear dynamics, and network theory to biological systems. This review aims at providing a clear overview of the most important methodologies applied in the field while highlighting current and future challenges. It also includes hands-on tutorials to solve and simulate some of the archetypical biological system models used in the field. Furthermore, we provide concrete examples from the existing literature for theoreticians that wish to explore this fast-developing field. Whenever possible, we highlight the similarities and differences between biochemical and regulatory networks and 'classical' systems typically studied in non-equilibrium statistical and quantum mechanics.
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46
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Gorin G, Vastola JJ, Pachter L. Studying stochastic systems biology of the cell with single-cell genomics data. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.05.17.541250. [PMID: 37292934 PMCID: PMC10245677 DOI: 10.1101/2023.05.17.541250] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Recent experimental developments in genome-wide RNA quantification hold considerable promise for systems biology. However, rigorously probing the biology of living cells requires a unified mathematical framework that accounts for single-molecule biological stochasticity in the context of technical variation associated with genomics assays. We review models for a variety of RNA transcription processes, as well as the encapsulation and library construction steps of microfluidics-based single-cell RNA sequencing, and present a framework to integrate these phenomena by the manipulation of generating functions. Finally, we use simulated scenarios and biological data to illustrate the implications and applications of the approach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gennady Gorin
- Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125
| | - John J. Vastola
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115
| | - Lior Pachter
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125
- Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125
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47
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Carilli M, Gorin G, Choi Y, Chari T, Pachter L. Biophysical modeling with variational autoencoders for bimodal, single-cell RNA sequencing data. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.01.13.523995. [PMID: 36712140 PMCID: PMC9882246 DOI: 10.1101/2023.01.13.523995] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/15/2023]
Abstract
We motivate and present biVI, which combines the variational autoencoder framework of scVI with biophysically motivated, bivariate models for nascent and mature RNA distributions. While previous approaches to integrate bimodal data via the variational autoencoder framework ignore the causal relationship between measurements, biVI models the biophysical processes that give rise to observations. We demonstrate through simulated benchmarking that biVI captures cell type structure in a low-dimensional space and accurately recapitulates parameter values and copy number distributions. On biological data, biVI provides a scalable route for identifying the biophysical mechanisms underlying gene expression. This analytical approach outlines a generalizable strategy for treating multimodal datasets generated by high-throughput, single-cell genomic assays.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Carilli
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology
| | - Gennady Gorin
- Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
| | - Yongin Choi
- Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group, University of California, Davis
- Genome Center, University of California, Davis
| | - Tara Chari
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology
| | - Lior Pachter
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology
- Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology
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48
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Pillai M, Hojel E, Jolly MK, Goyal Y. Unraveling non-genetic heterogeneity in cancer with dynamical models and computational tools. NATURE COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE 2023; 3:301-313. [PMID: 38177938 DOI: 10.1038/s43588-023-00427-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2022] [Accepted: 03/03/2023] [Indexed: 01/06/2024]
Abstract
Individual cells within an otherwise genetically homogenous population constantly undergo fluctuations in their molecular state, giving rise to non-genetic heterogeneity. Such diversity is being increasingly implicated in cancer therapy resistance and metastasis. Identifying the origins of non-genetic heterogeneity is therefore crucial for making clinical breakthroughs. We discuss with examples how dynamical models and computational tools have provided critical multiscale insights into the nature and consequences of non-genetic heterogeneity in cancer. We demonstrate how mechanistic modeling has been pivotal in establishing key concepts underlying non-genetic diversity at various biological scales, from population dynamics to gene regulatory networks. We discuss advances in single-cell longitudinal profiling techniques to reveal patterns of non-genetic heterogeneity, highlighting the ongoing efforts and challenges in statistical frameworks to robustly interpret such multimodal datasets. Moving forward, we stress the need for data-driven statistical and mechanistically motivated dynamical frameworks to come together to develop predictive cancer models and inform therapeutic strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maalavika Pillai
- Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA
- Center for Synthetic Biology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA
- Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
- Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
| | - Emilia Hojel
- Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA
- Center for Synthetic Biology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering, Evanston, IL, USA
| | - Mohit Kumar Jolly
- Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
| | - Yogesh Goyal
- Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA.
- Center for Synthetic Biology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA.
- Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering, Evanston, IL, USA.
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49
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Luo S, Zhang Z, Wang Z, Yang X, Chen X, Zhou T, Zhang J. Inferring transcriptional bursting kinetics from single-cell snapshot data using a generalized telegraph model. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2023; 10:221057. [PMID: 37035293 PMCID: PMC10073913 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.221057] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2022] [Accepted: 03/13/2023] [Indexed: 06/19/2023]
Abstract
Gene expression has inherent stochasticity resulting from transcription's burst manners. Single-cell snapshot data can be exploited to rigorously infer transcriptional burst kinetics, using mathematical models as blueprints. The classical telegraph model (CTM) has been widely used to explain transcriptional bursting with Markovian assumptions. However, growing evidence suggests that the gene-state dwell times are generally non-exponential, as gene-state switching is a multi-step process in organisms. Therefore, interpretable non-Markovian mathematical models and efficient statistical inference methods are urgently required in investigating transcriptional burst kinetics. We develop an interpretable and tractable model, the generalized telegraph model (GTM), to characterize transcriptional bursting that allows arbitrary dwell-time distributions, rather than exponential distributions, to be incorporated into the ON and OFF switching process. Based on the GTM, we propose an inference method for transcriptional bursting kinetics using an approximate Bayesian computation framework. This method demonstrates an efficient and scalable estimation of burst frequency and burst size on synthetic data. Further, the application of inference to genome-wide data from mouse embryonic fibroblasts reveals that GTM would estimate lower burst frequency and higher burst size than those estimated by CTM. In conclusion, the GTM and the corresponding inference method are effective tools to infer dynamic transcriptional bursting from static single-cell snapshot data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Songhao Luo
- Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Computational Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
- School of Mathematics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
| | - Zhenquan Zhang
- Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Computational Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
- School of Mathematics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
| | - Zihao Wang
- Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Computational Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
- School of Mathematics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
| | - Xiyan Yang
- School of Financial Mathematics and Statistics, Guangdong University of Finance, Guangzhou 510521, People's Republic of China
| | - Xiaoxuan Chen
- Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Computational Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
- School of Mathematics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
| | - Tianshou Zhou
- Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Computational Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
- School of Mathematics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
| | - Jiajun Zhang
- Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Computational Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
- School of Mathematics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510275, People's Republic of China
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Li H, Zhang Z, Squires M, Chen X, Zhang X. scMultiSim: simulation of multi-modality single cell data guided by cell-cell interactions and gene regulatory networks. RESEARCH SQUARE 2023:rs.3.rs-2675530. [PMID: 36993284 PMCID: PMC10055660 DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-2675530/v1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/19/2023]
Abstract
Simulated single-cell data is essential for designing and evaluating computational methods in the absence of experimental ground truth. Existing simulators typically focus on modeling one or two specific biological factors or mechanisms that affect the output data, which limits their capacity to simulate the complexity and multi-modality in real data. Here, we present scMultiSim, an in silico simulator that generates multi-modal single-cell data, including gene expression, chromatin accessibility, RNA velocity, and spatial cell locations while accounting for the relationships between modalities. scMultiSim jointly models various biological factors that affect the output data, including cell identity, within-cell gene regulatory networks (GRNs), cell-cell interactions (CCIs), and chromatin accessibility, while also incorporating technical noises. Moreover, it allows users to adjust each factor's effect easily. We validated scMultiSim's simulated biological effects and demonstrated its applications by benchmarking a wide range of computational tasks, including cell clustering and trajectory inference, multi-modal and multi-batch data integration, RNA velocity estimation, GRN inference and CCI inference using spatially resolved gene expression data. Compared to existing simulators, scMultiSim can benchmark a much broader range of existing computational problems and even new potential tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hechen Li
- Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
| | - Ziqi Zhang
- Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
| | | | - Xi Chen
- Southern University of Science and Technology, China
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