iSEE

A tool for unsupervised clustering and analysis of single cell RNA-Seq data.

iSEEu (the iSEE universe) contains diverse functionality to extend the usage of the iSEE package, including additional classes for the panels, or modes allowing easy configuration of iSEE applications.

Provides a streamlined workflow for clustering and visualizing gene expression patterns, particularly from time-series RNA-Seq and single-cell experiments. The package is designed to integrate seamlessly within the Bioconductor ecosystem by operating directly on standard data classes such as `SummarizedExperiment` and `SingleCellExperiment`. It implements common clustering algorithms (e.g., k-means, fuzzy c-means) and generates a suite of publication-ready visualizations to explore co-expressed gene modules. Functions are also included to facilitate the visualization of clustering results derived from other popular tools.

Single-cell mRNA sequencing can uncover novel cell-to-cell heterogeneity in gene expression levels in seemingly homogeneous populations of cells. However, these experiments are prone to high levels of technical noise, creating new challenges for identifying genes that show genuine heterogeneous expression within the population of cells under study. BASiCS (Bayesian Analysis of Single-Cell Sequencing data) is an integrated Bayesian hierarchical model to perform statistical analyses of single-cell RNA sequencing datasets in the context of supervised experiments (where the groups of cells of interest are known a priori, e.g. experimental conditions or cell types). BASiCS performs built-in data normalisation (global scaling) and technical noise quantification (based on spike-in genes). BASiCS provides an intuitive detection criterion for highly (or lowly) variable genes within a single group of cells. Additionally, BASiCS can compare gene expression patterns between two or more pre-specified groups of cells. Unlike traditional differential expression tools, BASiCS quantifies changes in expression that lie beyond comparisons of means, also allowing the study of changes in cell-to-cell heterogeneity. The latter can be quantified via a biological over-dispersion parameter that measures the excess of variability that is observed with respect to Poisson sampling noise, after normalisation and technical noise removal. Due to the strong mean/over-dispersion confounding that is typically observed for scRNA-seq datasets, BASiCS also tests for changes in residual over-dispersion, defined by residual values with respect to a global mean/over-dispersion trend.

This package provides functionality to combine the existing pieces of the transcriptome data and results, making it easier to generate insightful observations and hypothesis. Its usage is made easy with a Shiny application, combining the benefits of interactivity and reproducibility e.g. by capturing the features and gene sets of interest highlighted during the live session, and creating an HTML report as an artifact where text, code, and output coexist. Using the GeneTonicList as a standardized container for all the required components, it is possible to simplify the generation of multiple visualizations and summaries.