Single-cell multiomics data integration and generation with scPairing

Abstract

Single-cell multiomics technologies generate paired measurements of different cellular modalities, such as gene expression and chromatin accessibility. However, multiomics technologies are more expensive than their unimodal counterparts, resulting in smaller and fewer available multiomics datasets. Here, we present scPairing, a deep learning model inspired by Contrastive Language-Image Pre-Training, which embeds different modalities from the same single cells onto a common embedding space. We leverage the common embedding space to generate novel multiomics data following bridge integration, a method that uses an existing multiomics bridge to link unimodal data. Through extensive benchmarking, we show that scPairing constructs an embedding space that fully captures both coarse and fine biological structures. We then use scPairing to generate new multiomics data from retina, immune, and renal cells. Furthermore, we extend scPairing to generate trimodal data. Researchers can use these generated multiomics datasets to discover new biological relationships across modalities or confirm existing hypotheses.