Doublets are a characteristic error source in droplet-based single-cell sequencing data where two cells are encapsulated in the same oil emulsion and are tagged with the same cell barcode. Across type doublets manifest as fictitious phenotypes that can be incorrectly interpreted as novel cell types. DoubletDetection present a novel, fast, unsupervised classifier to detect across-type doublets in single-cell RNA-sequencing data that operates on a count matrix and imposes no experimental constraints. This classifier leverages the creation of in silico synthetic doublets to determine which cells in the input count matrix have gene expression that is best explained by the combination of distinct cell types in the matrix. In this notebook, we will illustrate an example workflow for detecting doublets in single-cell RNA-seq count matrices.

In the realm of transcriptional dynamics, understanding the intricate interplay of regulatory proteins is crucial for deciphering processes ranging from normal development to disease progression. However, traditional RNA velocity methods often overlook the underlying regulatory drivers of gene expression changes over time. This gap in knowledge hinders our ability to unravel the mechanistic intricacies of these dynamic processes. scKINETICs (Key regulatory Interaction NETwork for Inferring Cell Speed) (Burdziak et al, 2023) offers a dynamic model for gene expression changes that simultaneously learns per-cell transcriptional velocities and a governing gene regulatory network. By employing an expectation-maximization approach, scKINETICS quantifies the impact of each regulatory element on its target genes, incorporating insights from epigenetic data, gene-gene coexpression patterns and constraints dictated by the phenotypic manifold.

In the realm of cancer research, grasping the intricacies of intratumor heterogeneity and its interplay with the immune system is paramount for deciphering treatment resistance and tumor progression. While single-cell RNA sequencing unveils diverse transcriptional programs, the challenge persists in automatically discerning malignant cells from non-malignant ones within complex datasets featuring varying coverage depths. Thus, there arises a compelling need for an automated solution to this classification conundrum. SCEVAN (De Falco et al., 2023), a variational algorithm, is designed to autonomously identify the clonal copy number substructure of tumors using single-cell data. It automatically separates malignant cells from non-malignant ones, and subsequently, groups of malignant cells are examined through an optimization-driven joint segmentation process.