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RAG: a regularized adaptive graph-based method for rare-cell identification from single-cell expression data

delete2026-07-17
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OA
AI
X
Xiaolong Wang
Y
Yanyan Chen
D
Dian Huang *
Z
Zhen Ju
Q
Qi Wei
S
Shu Li
S
Shengzhong Feng *
DOI:10.1093/bib/bbag379delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Rare-cell identification is essential for dissecting disease mechanisms and developmental programs. Existing methods mostly rely on fixed-size neighbourhood graphs to separate rare-cell populations in single-cell expression data, which may embed rare cells into dominant clusters under varying sampling densities. This paper proposes the RAG method for identifying rare cells based on regularized adaptive graphs, which can better separate rare cells. Specifically, the regularized adaptive graph is constructed by estimating cell-specific radii from Euclidean–cosine hybrid dissimilarity to constrain effective neighbours and stabilize the adjacency, and then, assigning locally scaled hybrid affinities to make affinity magnitudes comparable across density-varying regions. Across 10 real single-cell RNA sequencing datasets, RAG overall outperformed six state-of-the-art methods, improving precision, F1 score, and rare-type coverage rate over the second-ranked baseline by 42%, 26%, and 35%, respectively. A case study on colorectal tumour tissue shows that RAG is more accurate in recovering annotated rare-cell populations and separating the substructure from the major population than the other evaluated methods. Further analyses on mouse airway epithelium and two pancreas datasets showed that about half of RAG-resolved small clusters corresponded to known annotated populations or marker-supported subpopulations.

Journal

Briefings in Bioinformatics cover
Briefings in Bioinformatics
IF:
7.7
Papers:
5.8K
Citations:
2.7W

Organization

J
Jiangsu Cancer Hospital
Scholars:
14
Papers: 6
Citations: 0
M
Macau Polytechnic University
Scholars:
3
Papers: 3
Citations: 0
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Cited Papers

Cited Papers

CellSIUS provides sensitive and specific detection of rare cell populations from complex single-cell RNA-seq data
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errWegmann, Rebekka; Neri, Marilisa; Schuierer, Sven; Bilican, Bilada; Hartkopf, Huyen; Nigsch, Florian; Mapa, Felipa; Waldt, Annick; Cuttat, Rachel; Salick, Max R.; Raymond, Joe; Kaykas, Ajamete; Roma, Guglielmo; Keller, Caroline Gubser
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Comprehensive Integration of Single-Cell Data
errCell
IF0
err2019-06-01
err0
errOAAI
errTim Stuart; Andrew Butler; Paul Hoffman; Christoph Hafemeister; Efthymia Papalexi; William M. Mauck; Yuhan Hao; Marlon Stoeckius; Peter Smibert; Rahul Satija
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Single-Cell RNA-Seq Reveals Dynamic, Random Monoallelic Gene Expression in Mammalian Cells
err2014-01-10
err0
PREAI
errQiaolin Deng; Daniel Ramsköld; Björn Reinius; Rickard Sandberg
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Discovery of rare cells from voluminous single cell expression data
err2018-11-09
err84
errOAAI
errJindal, Aashi; Gupta, Prashant; Jayadeva; Sengupta, Debarka
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Connectivity Network Feature Sharing in Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Data Identifies Rare Cells
err2024-08-03
err0
PREAI
errWang, Shudong; Li, Hengxiao; Liu, Yahui; Pang, Shanchen; Qiao, Sibo; Su, Jionglong; Wang, Shaoqiang; Zhang, Yulin
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