Powering single-cell analyses in the browser with WebAssembly

Abstract

We present kana, a web application for interactive single-cell omics data analysis in the browser. Like, literally, in the browser: kana leverages web technologies such as WebAssembly to efficiently perform the relevant computations on the users machine, avoiding the need to provision and maintain a backend service. The application provides a streamlined one-click workflow for the main steps in a typical single-cell analysis, starting from a count matrix and finishing with marker detection. Results are presented in an intuitive web interface for further exploration and iterative analysis. Testing on public datasets shows that kana can analyze over 100,000 cells within 5 minutes on a typical laptop.