Cited by 477Single-cell and spatial transcriptomicsGene expression and cancer classificationGenomics and Phylogenetic Studies

Feature selection and dimension reduction for single-cell RNA-Seq based on a multinomial model

Open access
Townes, F. William, Hicks, Stephanie C., Aryee, Martin J., Irizarry, Rafael A.·2019·Genome Biology

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Single-cell RNA-Seq (scRNA-Seq) profiles gene expression of individual cells. Recent scRNA-Seq datasets have incorporated unique molecular identifiers (UMIs). Using negative controls, we show UMI counts follow multinomial sampling with no zero inflation. Current normalization procedures such as log of counts per million and feature selection by highly variable genes produce false variability in dimension reduction. We propose simple multinomial methods, including generalized principal component analysis (GLM-PCA) for non-normal distributions, and feature selection using deviance. These methods outperform the current practice in a downstream clustering assessment using ground truth datasets.

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.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s13059-019-1861-6

Cites

75 of 75 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

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?

  • Deviance identifies highly informative genes by fitting a gene-wise model that assumes constant expression across all cells and quantifying which genes violate this assumption.

    “Deviance identifies highly informative genes by fitting a gene-wise model that assumes constant expression across all cells and quantifying which genes violate this assumption47.”

    From Best practices for single-cell analysis across modalities (2023) · cites this paper as [47]

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

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Townes, F. W., Hicks, S. C., Aryee, M. J., & Irizarry, R. A.
Affiliations
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
Venue
Genome Biology
Published
2019-12
Volume
20
Issue
1
Pages
295-295
ISSN
  • 1465-6906 (ISSN-L)
  • 1474-760X
OpenAlex
W2998065416
Cited by
471
References
68
Citations by year
2026: 49 · 2025: 56 · 2024: 78 · 2023: 76 · 2022: 70 · 2021: 80 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 14
FWCI
17.71
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Genome biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Human Genome Research Institute (R00HG009007, R01HG005220, P41HG004059)
  • National Cancer Institute (T32CA009337)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM083084)
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, feature selection, dimensionality reduction, multinomial model, unique molecular identifiers, highly variable genes, generalized principal component analysis, cell clustering
MeSH terms
Models, Statistical, Sequence Analysis, RNA, Single-Cell Analysis

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