A probabilistic model-based bi-clustering method for single-cell transcriptomic data analysis

Abstract

We present here novel computational techniques for tackling four problems related to analyses of single-cell RNA-Seq data: (1) a mixture model for coping with multiple cell types in a cell population; (2) a truncated model for handling the unquantifiable errors caused by large numbers of zeros or low-expression values; (3) a bi-clustering technique for detection of sub-populations of cells sharing common expression patterns among subsets of genes; and (4) detection of small cell sub-populations with distinct expression patterns. Through case studies, we demonstrated that these techniques can derive high-resolution information from single-cell data that are not feasible using existing techniques.