Cited by 958Single-cell and spatial transcriptomicsGene expression and cancer classificationGenomics and Phylogenetic Studies

RNA-Seq Signatures Normalized by mRNA Abundance Allow Absolute Deconvolution of Human Immune Cell Types

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Monaco, Gianni, Lee, Bernett, Xu, Weili, Mustafah, Seri, Hwang, You Yi, Carré, Christophe, Burdin, Nicolas, Visan, Lucian +5 more·2019·Cell Reports

Abstract

The molecular characterization of immune subsets is important for designing effective strategies to understand and treat diseases. We characterized 29 immune cell types within the peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) fraction of healthy donors using RNA-seq (RNA sequencing) and flow cytometry. Our dataset was used, first, to identify sets of genes that are specific, are co-expressed, and have housekeeping roles across the 29 cell types. Then, we examined differences in mRNA heterogeneity and mRNA abundance revealing cell type specificity. Last, we performed absolute deconvolution on a suitable set of immune cell types using transcriptomics signatures normalized by mRNA abundance. Absolute deconvolution is ready to use for PBMC transcriptomic data using our Shiny app (https://github.com/giannimonaco/ABIS). We benchmarked different deconvolution and normalization methods and validated the resources in independent cohorts. Our work has research, clinical, and diagnostic value by making it possible to effectively associate observations in bulk transcriptomics data to specific immune subsets.

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Authors
Monaco, G., Lee, B., Xu, W., Mustafah, S., Hwang, Y. Y., Carré, C., Burdin, N., Visan, L., Ceccarelli, M., Poidinger, M., Zippelius, A., Pedro de Magalhães, J., & Larbi, A.
Affiliations
  • Agency for Science, Technology and Research (SG)
  • Sanofi (France) (FR)
  • University of Sannio (IT)
  • University of Basel (CH)
Corresponding author
  • Monaco, Gianni
  • Larbi, Anis
Venue
Cell Reports
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2019-02
Volume
26
Issue
6
Pages
1627-1640.e7
ISSN
2211-1247 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2911922390
Cited by
958
References
70
Citations by year
2026: 120 · 2025: 156 · 2024: 156 · 2023: 164 · 2022: 130 · 2021: 145 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 22
FWCI
29.96
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cell Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • National University of Singapore (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Greater South Information System
Funders
  • Singapore Immunology Network
  • Agency for Science, Technology and Research (1434m00115, IAF 311006, H16/99/b0/011)
  • Skin Research Institute of Singapore (14018)
  • Wellcome Trust (208375/Z/17/Z)
  • University of Liverpool
  • A∗STAR/University of Liverpool
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gene expression and cancer classification
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
Keywords
immune cell deconvolution, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, immune cell types, gene expression signatures, gene co-expression, housekeeping genes, bulk transcriptomics
MeSH terms
Adult, B-Lymphocytes, Basophils, Dendritic Cells, Female, Flow Cytometry, Humans, Killer Cells, Natural, Male, Monocytes, Neutrophils, Organ Specificity, RNA, Messenger, Stem Cells, T-Lymphocytes, Immunophenotyping, Cell Lineage, Benchmarking, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Transcriptome, Healthy Volunteers

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