Nebulosa recovers single-cell gene expression signals by kernel density estimation
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Summary: Data sparsity in single-cell experiments prevents an accurate assessment of gene expression when visualized in a low-dimensional space. Here, we introduce Nebulosa, an R package that uses weighted kernel density estimation to recover signals lost through drop-out or low expression. Availability and implementation: Nebulosa can be easily installed from www.github.com/powellgenomicslab/Nebulosa. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
High-confidence Trem2+ monocytes were identified by expression of known TREM2+ monocyte markers (TREM2, APOE, CSF1R) using gene-weighted density estimation in Nebulosa.
“High-confidence Trem2+ monocytes were identified by expression of known TREM2+ monocyte markers (TREM2, APOE, CSF1R81,89), identified by gene-weighted density estimation implemented in the Nebulosa package for R.78”
From Cystatin C is glucocorticoid responsive, directs recruitment of Trem2+ macrophages, and predicts failure of cancer immunotherapy (2023) · cites this paper as [78]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Massively parallel digital transcriptional profiling of single cells
Zheng, G. X. Y., Terry, J. M., Belgrader, P., Ryvkin, P., Bent, Z. W., Wilson, R., Ziraldo, S. B., Wheeler, T. D., McDermott, G. P., Zhu, J., et al. (2017) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms14049 · Cited by 7,353 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Duong, T. (2007). ks: Kernel density estimation and kernel discriminant analysis for multivariate data in r. Journal of statistical software, 21(7).
- Lukowski, S. W. et al. (2018). Detection of HPV e7 transcription at single-cell resolution in epidermis. Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 138(12), 2558-2567.
- Venables, W. N. and Ripley, B. D. (2002). Modern Applied Statistics with S. Springer, New York, fourth edition. ISBN 0-387-95457-0.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Integrated analysis of multimodal single-cell data
Hao, Y., Hao, S., Andersen-Nissen, E., Mauck, W. M., Zheng, S., Butler, A., Lee, M. J., Wilk, A. J., Darby, C., Zagar, M., et al. (2020) · doi:10.1101/2020.10.12.335331 · Cited by 15,508 · see citing works
A new gene set identifies senescent cells and predicts senescence-associated pathways across tissues
Saul, D., Kosinsky, R. L., Atkinson, E. J., Doolittle, M. L., Zhang, X., LeBrasseur, N. K., Pignolo, R. J., Robbins, P. D., Niedernhofer, L. J., Ikeno, Y., et al. (2022) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32552-1 · Cited by 1,060 · see citing works
Spatial multi-omic map of human myocardial infarction
Kuppe, C., Ramirez Flores, R. O., Li, Z., Hayat, S., Levinson, R. T., Liao, X., Hannani, M. T., Tanevski, J., Wünnemann, F., Nagai, J. S., et al. (2022) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-022-05060-x · Cited by 772 · see citing works
Identification of a broadly fibrogenic macrophage subset induced by type 3 inflammation
Fabre, T., Barron, A. M. S., Christensen, S. M., Asano, S., Bound, K., Lech, M. P., Wadsworth, M. H., Chen, X., Wang, C., Wang, J., et al. (2023) · Science Immunology · doi:10.1126/sciimmunol.add8945 · Cited by 355 · see citing works
Liu, B., Zhang, Y., Wang, D., Hu, X., & Zhang, Z. (2022) · Nature Cancer · doi:10.1038/s43018-022-00433-7 · Cited by 309 · see citing works
Epigenetic memory of coronavirus infection in innate immune cells and their progenitors
Cheong, J.-G., Ravishankar, A., Sharma, S., Parkhurst, C. N., Grassmann, S. A., Wingert, C. K., Laurent, P., Ma, S., Paddock, L., Miranda, I. C., et al. (2023) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2023.07.019 · Cited by 309 · see citing works
BANKSY unifies cell typing and tissue domain segmentation for scalable spatial omics data analysis
Singhal, V., Chou, N., Lee, J., Yue, Y., Liu, J., Chock, W. K., Lin, L., Chang, Y.-C., Teo, E. M. L., Aow, J., et al. (2024) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/s41588-024-01664-3 · Cited by 282 · see citing works
The gut microbiota promotes distal tissue regeneration via RORγ+ regulatory T cell emissaries
Hanna, B. S., Wang, G., Galván-Peña, S., Mann, A. O., Ramirez, R. N., Muñoz-Rojas, A. R., Smith, K., Wan, M., Benoist, C., & Mathis, D. (2023) · Immunity · doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2023.01.033 · Cited by 126 · see citing works
Martins-Ferreira, R., Calafell-Segura, J., Leal, B., Rodríguez-Ubreva, J., Martínez-Saez, E., Mereu, E., Pinho E Costa, P., Laguna, A., & Ballestar, E. (2025) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-025-56124-1 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Modulation of fracture healing by the transient accumulation of senescent cells
Saul, D., Monroe, D. G., Rowsey, J. L., Kosinsky, R. L., Vos, S. J., Doolittle, M. L., Farr, J. N., & Khosla, S. (2021) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.69958 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
<i>SUV39H1</i> Ablation Enhances Long-term CAR T Function in Solid Tumors
López-Cobo, S., Fuentealba, J. R., Gueguen, P., Bonté, P.-E., Tsalkitzi, K., Chacón, I., Glauzy, S., Bohineust, A., Biquand, A., Silva, L., et al. (2024) · Cancer Discovery · doi:10.1158/2159-8290.cd-22-1350 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
Senescent-like microglia limit remyelination through the senescence associated secretory phenotype
Gross, P. S., Durán-Laforet, V., Ho, L. T., Melchor, G. S., Zia, S., Manavi, Z., Barclay, W. E., Lee, S. H., Shults, N., Selva, S., et al. (2025) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-025-57632-w · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Doolittle, M. L., Saul, D., Kaur, J., Rowsey, J. L., Vos, S. J., Pavelko, K. D., Farr, J. N., Monroe, D. G., & Khosla, S. (2023) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-023-40393-9 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Doolittle, M. L., Saul, D., Kaur, J., Rowsey, J. L., Vos, S. J., Pavelko, K. D., Farr, J. N., Monroe, D. G., & Khosla, S. (2023) · doi:10.1101/2023.01.12.523760 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Zia, S., Hammond, B. P., Zirngibl, M., Sizov, A., Baaklini, C. S., Panda, S. P., Ho, M. F. S., Lee, K. V., Mainali, A., Burr, M. K., et al. (2022) · Molecular Neurodegeneration · doi:10.1186/s13024-022-00584-2 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Kleeman, S. O., Thakir, T. M., Demestichas, B., Mourikis, N., Loiero, D., Ferrer, M., Bankier, S., Riazat-Kesh, Y. J. R. A., Lee, H., Chantzichristos, D., et al. (2023) · Cell Genomics · doi:10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100347 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Wang, L., Guo, Q., Acharya, S., Zheng, X., Huynh, V., Whitmore, B., Yimit, A., Malhotra, M., Chatterji, S., Rosin, N., et al. (2024) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/s41593-024-01726-z · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Modares, N. F., Hendrikse, L. D., Smith, L. K., Paul, M. S., Haight, J., Luo, P., Liu, S., Fortin, J., Tong, F. K., Wakeham, A. C., et al. (2025) · Immunity · doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2025.04.002 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Primary cilia-mediated regulation of microglial secretion in Alzheimer’s disease
Yeo, S., Jang, J., Jung, H. J., Lee, H., & Choe, Y. (2023) · Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences · doi:10.3389/fmolb.2023.1250335 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Ramirez, M. D., Bui, T. N., & Katz, P. S. (2024) · Journal of Comparative Neurology · doi:10.1002/cne.25628 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Lebeaupin, C., Donahue, K. L., Lal, S., Christensen, S. M., Asano, S., Wadsworth, M. H., Bound, K., De, S., McMahon, J., Schlerman, F., et al. (2025) · bioRxiv (preprint) · doi:10.64898/2025.12.17.694415
- Authors
- Alquicira-Hernandez, J., & Powell, J. E.
- Affiliations
- Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, Garvan Institute of Medical Research , Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia
- Garvan Institute of Medical Research (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Powell, Joseph E
- ORCID
- Powell, Joseph E
- Venue
- Bioinformatics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2021-01-18
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 16
- Pages
- 2485-2487
- ISSN
- 1367-4803 (ISSN-L)
- 1367-4811
- OpenAlex
- W3125797470
- Cited by
- 381
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 65 · 2025: 108 · 2024: 85 · 2023: 62 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 16.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Bioinformatics (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator (1175781)
- National Health and Medical Research Council project grant (APP1143163)
- Australian Research Council Discovery project (DP180101405)
- 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 gene expression, kernel density estimation, data sparsity, dropout, signal reconstruction, dimensionality reduction, R package
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review