ULV: A robust statistical method for clustered data, with applications to multisubject, single-cell omics data

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Du, Mingyu, Johnston, Kevin, Berrocal, Veronica, Li, Wei, Xu, Xiangmin, Yu, Zhaoxia
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Du, Mingyu
Johnston, Kevin
Berrocal, Veronica
Li, Wei
Xu, Xiangmin
Yu, Zhaoxia
author_facet Du, Mingyu
Johnston, Kevin
Berrocal, Veronica
Li, Wei
Xu, Xiangmin
Yu, Zhaoxia
contents Molecular and genomic technological advancements have greatly enhanced our understanding of biological processes by allowing us to quantify key biological variables such as gene expression, protein levels, and microbiome compositions. These breakthroughs have enabled us to achieve increasingly higher levels of resolution in our measurements, exemplified by our ability to comprehensively profile biological information at the single-cell level. However, the analysis of such data faces several critical challenges: limited number of individuals, non-normality, potential dropouts, outliers, and repeated measurements from the same individual. In this article, we propose a novel method, which we call U-statistic based latent variable (ULV). Our proposed method takes advantage of the robustness of rank-based statistics and exploits the statistical efficiency of parametric methods for small sample sizes. It is a computationally feasible framework that addresses all the issues mentioned above simultaneously. An additional advantage of ULV is its flexibility in modeling various types of single-cell data, including both RNA and protein abundance. The usefulness of our method is demonstrated in two studies: a single-cell proteomics study of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and a single-cell RNA study of COVID-19 symptoms. In the AML study, ULV successfully identified differentially expressed proteins that would have been missed by the pseudobulk version of the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. In the COVID-19 study, ULV identified genes associated with covariates such as age and gender, and genes that would be missed without adjusting for covariates. The differentially expressed genes identified by our method are less biased toward genes with high expression levels. Furthermore, ULV identified additional gene pathways likely contributing to the mechanisms of COVID-19 severity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_06767
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ULV: A robust statistical method for clustered data, with applications to multisubject, single-cell omics data
Du, Mingyu
Johnston, Kevin
Berrocal, Veronica
Li, Wei
Xu, Xiangmin
Yu, Zhaoxia
Methodology
Quantitative Methods
Computation
Molecular and genomic technological advancements have greatly enhanced our understanding of biological processes by allowing us to quantify key biological variables such as gene expression, protein levels, and microbiome compositions. These breakthroughs have enabled us to achieve increasingly higher levels of resolution in our measurements, exemplified by our ability to comprehensively profile biological information at the single-cell level. However, the analysis of such data faces several critical challenges: limited number of individuals, non-normality, potential dropouts, outliers, and repeated measurements from the same individual. In this article, we propose a novel method, which we call U-statistic based latent variable (ULV). Our proposed method takes advantage of the robustness of rank-based statistics and exploits the statistical efficiency of parametric methods for small sample sizes. It is a computationally feasible framework that addresses all the issues mentioned above simultaneously. An additional advantage of ULV is its flexibility in modeling various types of single-cell data, including both RNA and protein abundance. The usefulness of our method is demonstrated in two studies: a single-cell proteomics study of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and a single-cell RNA study of COVID-19 symptoms. In the AML study, ULV successfully identified differentially expressed proteins that would have been missed by the pseudobulk version of the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. In the COVID-19 study, ULV identified genes associated with covariates such as age and gender, and genes that would be missed without adjusting for covariates. The differentially expressed genes identified by our method are less biased toward genes with high expression levels. Furthermore, ULV identified additional gene pathways likely contributing to the mechanisms of COVID-19 severity.
title ULV: A robust statistical method for clustered data, with applications to multisubject, single-cell omics data
topic Methodology
Quantitative Methods
Computation
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.06767