scRNA Analysis

Numbers

  • Several hundred cell types in the human body
  • Cell type specific genes (altered expression)
  • housekeeping genes are not altered between cell types (5000)
    • constant between cell types

Bulk RNA-seq

  • Condition tissue vs Control tissue
  • determine difference in expression between two tissues (not cell specific)
  • often not valid for individual cell types

Purified Bulk

  • attempt to isolate specific cell types before bulk sequencing

    • Computational and Experimental purification (FACS antibodies/genetic drivers) methods
  • Pseudo-bulk takes single cell RNA-seq data and combines it so that it can be analyzed with classic bulk RNA-seq tools.

10X genomics scRNA=seq platform

  • droplets (aqueous in oil) are used to separate cells

    • droplets are controlled so that each droplet contains one cell
    • cells in droplets are given a barcode to allow for later identification
    • cells can also have a sample id added
GEM (gel beads in emulsions)

Pseudo-time

  • Inferring a process from snapshots
  • given discrete moments in time, how to determine continuous process from the points in time.
    • Snapshots are transcriptomes at discrete time moments.
    • Snapshots can be taken from multiple cells (at different stages) at one time and arranged computationally
      • An “asynchronous, heterogeneous moment”

Tools

  • Seurat (R package)
  • Monocle (R package)

example analysis flow

  • filter cells
  • group cells
  • name cells
  • compare cells
    • pseudo-bulk
    • pseudo-time