Single cell analysis

2022
Jin Z, Huang W, Shen N, Li J, Wang X, Dong J, Park PJ, Xi R. Single-cell gene fusion detection by scFusion. Nat Commun 2022;13(1):1084.Abstract
Gene fusions can play important roles in tumor initiation and progression. While fusion detection so far has been from bulk samples, full-length single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) offers the possibility of detecting gene fusions at the single-cell level. However, scRNA-seq data have a high noise level and contain various technical artifacts that can lead to spurious fusion discoveries. Here, we present a computational tool, scFusion, for gene fusion detection based on scRNA-seq. We evaluate the performance of scFusion using simulated and five real scRNA-seq datasets and find that scFusion can efficiently and sensitively detect fusions with a low false discovery rate. In a T cell dataset, scFusion detects the invariant TCR gene recombinations in mucosal-associated invariant T cells that many methods developed for bulk data fail to detect; in a multiple myeloma dataset, scFusion detects the known recurrent fusion IgH-WHSC1, which is associated with overexpression of the WHSC1 oncogene. Our results demonstrate that scFusion can be used to investigate cellular heterogeneity of gene fusions and their transcriptional impact at the single-cell level.
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2020
Horton CA, Alver B, Park PJ. GiniQC: a measure for quantifying noise in single-cell Hi-C data. Bioinformatics 2020;Abstract
Single-cell Hi-C (scHi-C) allows the study of cell-to-cell variability in chromatin structure and dynamics. However, the high level of noise inherent in current scHi-C protocols necessitates careful assessment of data quality before biological conclusions can be drawn. Here we present GiniQC, which quantifies unevenness in the distribution of inter-chromosomal reads in the scHi-C contact matrix to measure the level of noise. Our examples show the utility of GiniQC in assessing the quality of scHi-C data as a complement to existing quality control measures. We also demonstrate how GiniQC can help inform the impact of various data processing steps on data quality.
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2019
Luquette JL, Bohrson CL, Sherman M, Park PJ. Identification of somatic mutations in single cell DNA sequencing data using a spatial model of allelic imbalance. Nature Communications 2019;10(1):3908.Abstract
Recent advances in single cell technology have enabled dissection of cellular heterogeneity in great detail. However, analysis of single cell DNA sequencing data remains challenging due to bias and artifacts that arise during DNA extraction and whole-genome amplification, including allelic imbalance and dropout. Here, we present a framework for statistical estimation of allele-specific amplification imbalance at any given position in single cell whole-genome sequencing data by utilizing the allele frequencies of heterozygous single nucleotide polymorphisms in the neighborhood. The resulting allelic imbalance profile is critical for determining whether the variant allele fraction of an observed mutation is consistent with the expected fraction for a true variant. This method, implemented in SCAN-SNV (Single Cell ANalysis of SNVs), substantially improves the identification of somatic variants in single cells. Our allele balance framework is broadly applicable to genotype analysis of any variant type in any data that might exhibit allelic imbalance.
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Bohrson CL, Barton AR, Lodato MA, Rodin RE, Luquette LJ, Viswanadham VV, Gulhan DC, Cortés-Ciriano I, Sherman MA, Kwon M, Coulter ME, Galor A, Walsh CA, Park PJ. Linked-read analysis identifies mutations in single-cell DNA-sequencing data. Nature Genetics 2019;51:749-754.Abstract
Whole-genome sequencing of DNA from single cells has the potential to reshape our understanding of mutational heterogeneity in normal and diseased tissues. However, a major difficulty is distinguishing amplification artifacts from biologically derived somatic mutations. Here, we describe linked-read analysis (LiRA), a method that accurately identifies somatic singlenucleotide variants (sSNVs) by using read-level phasing with nearby germline heterozygous polymorphisms, thereby enabling the characterization of mutational signatures and estimation of somatic mutation rates in single cells.
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2018
Fan J*, Lee HO*, Lee S, Ryu DE, Lee S, Xue C, Kim SJ, Kim K, Barkas N, Park PJ, Park WY, Karchenko PV. Linking transcriptional and genetic tumor heterogeneity through allele analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data. Genome Research 2018;28(8):1217-1227.Abstract
Characterization of intratumoral heterogeneity is critical to cancer therapy, as the presence of phenotypically diverse cell populations commonly fuels relapse and resistance to treatment. Although genetic variation is a well-studied source of intratumoral heterogeneity, the functional impact of most genetic alterations remains unclear. Even less understood is the relative importance of other factors influencing heterogeneity, such as epigenetic state or tumor microenvironment. To investigate the relationship between genetic and transcriptional heterogeneity in a context of cancer progression, we devised a computational approach called HoneyBADGER to identify copy number variation and loss of heterozygosity in individual cells from single-cell RNA-sequencing data. By integrating allele and normalized expression information, HoneyBADGER is able to identify and infer the presence of subclone-specific alterations in individual cells and reconstruct the underlying subclonal architecture. By examining several tumor types, we show that HoneyBADGER is effective at identifying deletions, amplifications, and copy-neutral loss-of-heterozygosity events and is capable of robustly identifying subclonal focal alterations as small as 10 megabases. We further apply HoneyBADGER to analyze single cells from a progressive multiple myeloma patient to identify major genetic subclones that exhibit distinct transcriptional signatures relevant to cancer progression. Other prominent transcriptional subpopulations within these tumors did not line up with the genetic subclonal structure and were likely driven by alternative, nonclonal mechanisms. These results highlight the need for integrative analysis to understand the molecular and phenotypic heterogeneity in cancer.
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Sherman MA, Barton AR, Lodato MA, Vitzthum C, Coulter ME, Walsh CA, Park PJ. PaSD-qc: quality control for single cell whole-genome sequencing data using power spectral density estimation. Nucleic Acids Research 2018;46(4):e20.Abstract
Single cell whole-genome sequencing (scWGS) is providing novel insights into the nature of genetic heterogeneity in normal and diseased cells. However, the whole-genome amplification process required for scWGS introduces biases into the resulting sequencing that can confound downstream analysis. Here, we present a statistical method, with an accompanying package PaSD-qc (Power Spectral Density-qc), that evaluates the properties and quality of single cell libraries. It uses a modified power spectral density to assess amplification uniformity, amplicon size distribution, autocovariance and inter-sample consistency as well as to identify chromosomes with aberrant read-density profiles due either to copy alterations or poor amplification. These metrics provide a standard way to compare the quality of single cell samples as well as yield information necessary to improve variant calling strategies. We demonstrate the usefulness of this tool in comparing the properties of scWGS protocols, identifying potential chromosomal copy number variation, determining chromosomal and subchromosomal regions of poor amplification, and selecting high-quality libraries from low-coverage data for deep sequencing. The software is available free and open-source at https://github.com/parklab/PaSDqc.
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2016
Evrony GD*, Lee E*, Park PJ**, Walsh CA**. Resolving rates of mutation in the brain using single-neuron genomics. Elife 2016;5Abstract

Whether somatic mutations contribute functional diversity to brain cells is a long-standing question. Single-neuron genomics enables direct measurement of somatic mutation rates in human brain and promises to answer this question. A recent study (Upton et al., 2015) reported high rates of somatic LINE-1 element (L1) retrotransposition in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex that would have major implications for normal brain function, and further claimed these mutation events preferentially impact genes important for neuronal function. We identify errors in single-cell sequencing approach, bioinformatic analysis, and validation methods that led to thousands of false-positive artifacts being mistakenly interpreted as somatic mutation events. Our reanalysis of the data supports a corrected mutation frequency (0.2 per cell) more than fifty-fold lower than reported, inconsistent with the authors' conclusion of 'ubiquitous' L1 mosaicism, but consistent with L1 elements mobilizing occasionally. Through consideration of the challenges and pitfalls identified, we provide a foundation and framework for designing single-cell genomics studies.

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2015
Evrony GD*, Lee E*, Mehta BK, Benjamini Y, Johnson RM, Cai X, Yang L, Haseley P, Lehmann HS, Park PJ**, Walsh CA**. Cell lineage analysis in human brain using endogenous retroelements. Neuron 2015;85(1):49-59.Abstract

Somatic mutations occur during brain development and are increasingly implicated as a cause of neurogenetic disease. However, the patterns in which somatic mutations distribute in the human brain are unknown. We used high-coverage whole-genome sequencing of single neurons from a normal individual to identify spontaneous somatic mutations as clonal marks to track cell lineages in human brain. Somatic mutation analyses in >30 locations throughout the nervous system identified multiple lineages and sublineages of cells marked by different LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposition events and subsequent mutation of poly-A microsatellites within L1. One clone contained thousands of cells limited to the left middle frontal gyrus, whereas a second distinct clone contained millions of cells distributed over the entire left hemisphere. These patterns mirror known somatic mutation disorders of brain development and suggest that focally distributed mutations are also prevalent in normal brains. Single-cell analysis of somatic mutation enables tracing of cell lineage clones in human brain.

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2012
Evrony GD*, Cai X*, Lee E, Hills BL, Elhosary PC, Lehmann HS, Parker JJ, Atabay KD, Gilmore EC, Poduri A, Park PJ, Walsh CA. Single-neuron sequencing analysis of L1 retrotransposition and somatic mutation in the human brain. Cell 2012;151(3):483-96.Abstract

A major unanswered question in neuroscience is whether there exists genomic variability between individual neurons of the brain, contributing to functional diversity or to an unexplained burden of neurological disease. To address this question, we developed a method to amplify genomes of single neurons from human brains. Because recent reports suggest frequent LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposition in human brains, we performed genome-wide L1 insertion profiling of 300 single neurons from cerebral cortex and caudate nucleus of three normal individuals, recovering >80% of germline insertions from single neurons. While we find somatic L1 insertions, we estimate <0.6 unique somatic insertions per neuron, and most neurons lack detectable somatic insertions, suggesting that L1 is not a major generator of neuronal diversity in cortex and caudate. We then genotyped single cortical cells to characterize the mosaicism of a somatic AKT3 mutation identified in a child with hemimegalencephaly. Single-neuron sequencing allows systematic assessment of genomic diversity in the human brain.

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