Scarf enables a highly memory-efficient analysis of large-scale single-cell genomics data

Parashar Dhapola (), Johan Rodhe, Rasmus Olofzon, Thomas Bonald, Eva Erlandsson, Shamit Soneji and Göran Karlsson ()
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Parashar Dhapola: Lund University
Johan Rodhe: Lund University
Rasmus Olofzon: Lund University
Thomas Bonald: Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Eva Erlandsson: Lund University
Shamit Soneji: Lund University
Göran Karlsson: Lund University

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract As the scale of single-cell genomics experiments grows into the millions, the computational requirements to process this data are beyond the reach of many. Herein we present Scarf, a modularly designed Python package that seamlessly interoperates with other single-cell toolkits and allows for memory-efficient single-cell analysis of millions of cells on a laptop or low-cost devices like single-board computers. We demonstrate Scarf’s memory and compute-time efficiency by applying it to the largest existing single-cell RNA-Seq and ATAC-Seq datasets. Scarf wraps memory-efficient implementations of a graph-based t-stochastic neighbour embedding and hierarchical clustering algorithm. Moreover, Scarf performs accurate reference-anchored mapping of datasets while maintaining memory efficiency. By implementing a subsampling algorithm, Scarf additionally has the capacity to generate representative sampling of cells from a given dataset wherein rare cell populations and lineage differentiation trajectories are conserved. Together, Scarf provides a framework wherein any researcher can perform advanced processing, subsampling, reanalysis, and integration of atlas-scale datasets on standard laptop computers. Scarf is available on Github: https://github.com/parashardhapola/scarf .

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32097-3

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