An entropy-based metric for assessing the purity of single cell populations

Baolin Liu, Chenwei Li, Ziyi Li, Dongfang Wang, Xianwen Ren and Zemin Zhang ()
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Baolin Liu: Peking University
Chenwei Li: Peking University
Ziyi Li: Peking University
Dongfang Wang: Peking University
Xianwen Ren: Peking University
Zemin Zhang: Peking University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a versatile tool for discovering and annotating cell types and states, but the determination and annotation of cell subtypes is often subjective and arbitrary. Often, it is not even clear whether a given cluster is uniform. Here we present an entropy-based statistic, ROGUE, to accurately quantify the purity of identified cell clusters. We demonstrate that our ROGUE metric is broadly applicable, and enables accurate, sensitive and robust assessment of cluster purity on a wide range of simulated and real datasets. Applying this metric to fibroblast, B cell and brain data, we identify additional subtypes and demonstrate the application of ROGUE-guided analyses to detect precise signals in specific subpopulations. ROGUE can be applied to all tested scRNA-seq datasets, and has important implications for evaluating the quality of putative clusters, discovering pure cell subtypes and constructing comprehensive, detailed and standardized single cell atlas.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16904-3

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