Cited by 979Single-cell and spatial transcriptomicsGene expression and cancer classificationGenomics and Phylogenetic Studies

Accounting for technical noise in single-cell RNA-seq experiments

Open access
Brennecke, Philip, Anders, Simon, Kim, Jong Kyoung, Kołodziejczyk, Aleksandra A, Zhang, Xiuwei, Proserpio, Valentina, Baying, Bianka, Benes, Vladimir +3 more·2013·Nature Methods

Abstract

Single-cell RNA-seq can yield valuable insights about the variability within a population of seemingly homogeneous cells. We developed a quantitative statistical method to distinguish true biological variability from the high levels of technical noise in single-cell experiments. Our approach quantifies the statistical significance of observed cell-to-cell variability in expression strength on a gene-by-gene basis. We validate our approach using two independent data sets from Arabidopsis thaliana and Mus musculus.

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Crossref · 10.1038/nmeth.2645

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  • Existing approaches for identifying highly variable genes (HVG) ignore spatial information and hence do not measure spatial variability.

    “However, existing approaches for identifying highly variable genes (HVG)9, as used for conventional scRNA-seq data, ignore spatial information and hence do not measure spatial variability (Fig. 1A).”

    From SpatialDE: identification of spatially variable genes (2018) · cites this paper as [9]

  • These genes do not have high rank based on non-spatial HVG measures (including mean-CV2 relation or mean-dropout relation).

    “Furthermore, these genes do not have high rank based on non-spatial HVG measures (including mean-CV2 relation9 or mean-dropout relation15, Supp. Fig. 8).”

    From SpatialDE: identification of spatially variable genes (2018) · cites this paper as [9]

  • Both endogenous and ERCC spike-in control CV patterns approximately followed an over-dispersed Poisson distribution.

    “Both endogenous and ERCC spike-in control CV patterns approximately followed an over-dispersed Poisson distribution (Supplementary Fig. S11), which is consistent with previous studies1120.”
  • Methods that can quantify gene-level technical variation allow focus on biological variation that is likely to be of interest.

    “Methods that can quantify gene-level technical variation allow us to focus on biological variation that is likely to be of interest [179].”

    From A survey of best practices for RNA-seq data analysis (2016) · cites this paper as [179]

  • The number of undetected transcripts is correlated with batch effects and other metrics of library quality, and weakly expressed transcripts are more frequently undetected.

    “Indeed, the number of undetected transcripts is correlated to batch effects60 and other metrics of library quality, and transcripts that are weakly expressed when detected are also more frequently undetected1.”

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Anders, S. & Huber, W. Genome Biol. 11, R106 (2010).

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Authors
Brennecke, P., Anders, S., Kim, J. K., Kołodziejczyk, A. A., Zhang, X., Proserpio, V., Baying, B., Benes, V., Teichmann, S. A., Marioni, J. C., & Heisler, M. G.
Affiliations
  • European Molecular Biology Laboratory (DE)
  • European Bioinformatics Institute (GB)
  • MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (GB)
  • The University of Sydney (AU)
Corresponding author
  • Marioni, John C
  • Heisler, Marcus G
Venue
Nature Methods
Published
2013-09-22
Volume
10
Issue
11
Pages
1093-1095
ISSN
  • 1548-7091 (ISSN-L)
  • 1548-7105
OpenAlex
W2025828346
Cited by
979
References
20
Citations by year
2026: 34 · 2025: 43 · 2024: 63 · 2023: 68 · 2022: 88 · 2021: 94 · 2020: 102 · 2019: 114 · 2018: 95 · 2017: 103 · 2016: 79 · 2015: 58 · 2014: 35 · 2013: 3
FWCI
25.98
Type
journal article
Language
en
Update notices
erratum (2014-01-30)
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Methods (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Institutional Research Information System University of Turin (University of Turin) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (1300642)
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
single-cell RNA sequencing, technical noise, spike-ins, biological variation, mRNA levels, Arabidopsis thaliana, Mus musculus
MeSH terms
Sequence Analysis, RNA, Single-Cell Analysis

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