Comparative Analysis of Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Methods, bioRxiv, 2016-01-14
AbstractBackgroundSingle-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) offers exciting possibilities to address biological and medical questions, but a systematic comparison of recently developed protocols is still lacking.ResultsWe generated data from 447 mouse embryonic stem cells using Drop-seq, SCRB-seq, Smart-seq (on Fluidigm C1) and Smart-seq2 and analyzed existing data from 35 mouse embryonic stem cells prepared with CEL-seq. We find that Smart-seq2 is the most sensitive method as it detects the most genes per cell and across cells. However, it shows more amplification noise than CEL-seq, Drop-seq and SCRB-seq as it cannot use unique molecular identifiers (UMIs). We use simulations to model how the observed combinations of sensitivity and amplification noise affects detection of differentially expressed genes and find that SCRB-seq reaches 80% power with the fewest number of cells. When considering cost-efficiency at different sequencing depths at 80% power, we find that Drop-seq is preferable when quantifying transcriptomes of a large numbers of cells with low sequencing depth, SCRB-seq is preferable when quantifying transcriptomes of fewer cells and Smart-seq2 is preferable when annotating andor quantifying transcriptomes of fewer cells as long one can use in-house produced transposase.ConclusionsOur analyses allows an informed choice among five prominent scRNA-seq protocols and provides a solid framework for benchmarking future improvements in scRNA-seq methodologies.
biorxiv genomics 0-100-users 2016Revised estimates for the number of human and bacteria cells in the body, bioRxiv, 2016-01-07
We critically revisit the ″common knowledge″ that bacteria outnumber human cells by a ratio of at least 101 in the human body. We found the total number of bacteria in the ″reference man″ to be 3.9·1013, with an uncertainty (SEM) of 25%, and a variation over the population (CV) of 52%. For human cells we identify the dominant role of the hematopoietic lineage to the total count of body cells (≈90%), and revise past estimates to reach a total of 3.0·1013human cells in the 70 kg ″reference man″ with 2% uncertainty and 14% CV. Our analysis updates the widely-cited 101 ratio, showing that the number of bacteria in our bodies is actually of the same order as the number of human cells. Indeed, the numbers are similar enough that each defecation event may flip the ratio to favor human cells over bacteria.
biorxiv systems-biology 500+-users 2016