Understanding global communications among cells requires accurate representation of cell-cell signaling links and effective systems-level analyses of those links.
We construct a database of interactions among ligands, receptors and their cofactors that accurately represent known heteromeric molecular complexes. We then develop **CellChat**, a tool that is able to quantitatively infer and analyze intercellular communication networks from single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data.
CellChat predicts major signaling inputs and outputs for cells and how those cells and signals coordinate for functions using network analysis and pattern recognition approaches. Through manifold learning and quantitative contrasts, CellChat classifies signaling pathways and delineates conserved and context-specific pathways across different datasets.
Applying **CellChat** to mouse and human skin datasets shows its ability to extract complex signaling patterns.
Doublets are a characteristic error source in droplet-based single-cell sequencing data where two cells are encapsulated in the same oil emulsion and are tagged with the same cell barcode. Across type doublets manifest as fictitious phenotypes that can be incorrectly interpreted as novel cell types. DoubletDetection present a novel, fast, unsupervised classifier to detect across-type doublets in single-cell RNA-sequencing data that operates on a count matrix and imposes no experimental constraints.
This classifier leverages the creation of in silico synthetic doublets to determine which cells in the
input count matrix have gene expression that is best explained by the combination of distinct cell
types in the matrix.
In this notebook, we will illustrate an example workflow for detecting doublets in single-cell RNA-seq count matrices.
Mapping out the coarse-grained connectivity structures of complex manifolds
Biological systems often change over time, as old cells die and new cells are created through differentiation from progenitor cells. This means that at any given time, not all cells will be at the same stage of development. In this sense, a single-cell sample could contain cells at different stages of differentiation. By analyzing the data, we can identify which cells are at which stages and build a model for their biological transitions.
By quantifying the connectivity of partitions (groups, clusters) of the single-cell graph, partition-based graph abstraction (PAGA) generates a much simpler abstracted graph (PAGA graph) of partitions, in which edge weights represent confidence in the presence of connections.
In this notebook, we will introduce the concept of single-cell Trajectory Analysis using PAGA (Partition-based graph abstraction) in the context of hematopoietic differentiation.