EDClust: an EM-MM hybrid method for cell clustering in multiple-subject single-cell RNA sequencing

Xin Wei, Ziyi Li, Hongkai Ji, Hao Wu

Abstract: Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has revolutionized biological research by enabling the measurement of transcriptomic profiles at the single-cell level. With the increasing application of scRNA-seq in larger-scale studies, the problem of appropriately clustering cells emerges when the scRNA-seq data are from multiple subjects. One challenge is the subject-specific variation; systematic heterogeneity from multiple subjects may have a significant impact on clustering accuracy. Existing methods seeking to address such effects suffer from several limitations.