General Helper/Utility Functions

scCustomize has several helper functions to simplify/streamline common tasks in scRNA-seq analysis. Let’s load packages and raw data object for this tutorial.

We’ll add some random meta data variables to pbmc data form use in this vignette

pbmc$sample_id <- sample(c("sample1", "sample2", "sample3", "sample4", "sample5", "sample6"), size = ncol(pbmc),
    replace = TRUE)
pbmc$batch <- sample(c("Batch1", "Batch2"), size = ncol(pbmc), replace = TRUE)

Add Mitochondrial & Ribosomal Percentages

As discussed in QC Plotting vignette one the first steps after creating object if often to calculate and add mitochondrial and ribosomal count percentages per cell/nucleus.

Add_Mito_Ribo()

scCustomize contains easy wrapper function to automatically add both Mitochondrial and Ribosomal percentages to meta.data slot. If you are using mouse, human, marmoset, zebrafish, rat, drosophila, or rhesus macaque data all you need to do is specify the species parameter.

# These defaults can be run just by providing accepted species name
pbmc <- Add_Mito_Ribo(object = pbmc, species = "human")

To view list of accepted values for default species names simply set list_species_names = TRUE.

Add_Mito_Ribo(list_species_names = TRUE)
Mouse_Options Human_Options Marmoset_Options Zebrafish_Options Rat_Options Drosophila_Options Macaque_Options
1 Mouse Human Marmoset Zebrafish Rat Drosophila Macaque
2 mouse human marmoset zebrafish rat drosophila macaque
3 Ms Hu CJ DR RN DM Rhesus
4 ms hu Cj Dr Rn Dm macaca
5 Mm Hs cj dr rn dm mmulatta
6 mm hs NA NA NA NA NA
Non-default species

However custom prefixes can be used for non-human/mouse/marmoset/rat/zebrafish/drosophila/macaque species with different annotations. Simply specify species = other and supply feature lists or regex patterns for your species of interest. NOTE: If desired please submit issue on GitHub for additional default species. Please include regex pattern or list of genes for both mitochondrial and ribosomal genes and I will add additional built-in defaults to the function.

# Using gene name patterns
pbmc <- Add_Mito_Ribo(object = pbmc, species = "other", mito_pattern = "regexp_pattern", ribo_pattern = "regexp_pattern")

# Using feature name lists
mito_gene_list <- c("gene1", "gene2", "etc")
ribo_gene_list <- c("gene1", "gene2", "etc")
pbmc <- Add_Mito_Ribo(object = pbmc, species = "other", mito_features = mito_gene_list, ribo_features = ribo_gene_list)

# Using combination of gene lists and gene name patterns
pbmc <- Add_Mito_Ribo(object = pbmc, species = "Human", mito_features = mito_gene_list, ribo_pattern = "regexp_pattern")

Warning Messages

The added benefit of Add_Mito_Ribo is that it will return informative warnings if no Mitochondrial or Ribosomal features are found using the current species, features, or pattern specification.

# For demonstration purposes we can set `species = mouse` for this object of human cells
pbmc <- Add_Mito_Ribo(object = pbmc, species = "mouse")
## Error in `Add_Mito_Ribo()`:
## ! No Mito or Ribo features found in object using patterns/feature list
##   provided.
##  Please check pattern/feature list and/or gene names in object.
# Or if providing custom patterns/lists and features not found
pbmc <- Add_Mito_Ribo(object = pbmc, species = "other", mito_pattern = "^MT-", ribo_pattern = "BAD_PATTERN")
## Warning: No Ribo features found in object using pattern/feature list provided.
##  No column will be added to meta.data.

Add_Mito_Ribo will also return warnings if columns are already present in @meta.data slot and prompt you to provide override if you want to run the function.

pbmc <- Add_Mito_Ribo(object = pbmc, species = "human")
## Error in `Add_Mito_Ribo()`:
## ! Columns with "percent_mito" and/or "percent_ribo" already present in
##   meta.data slot.
##  *To run function and overwrite columns set parameter `overwrite = TRUE` or
##   change respective `mito_name`, `ribo_name`, and/or `mito_ribo_name`*

LIGER Objects: Add_Mito_Ribo()

scCustomize Add_Mito_Ribo also works seemlessly with LIGER objects.

liger_obj <- Add_Mito_Ribo(object = liger_obj, species = "human")

Add Cell Complexity/Novelty QC Metrics

In addition to metrics like number of features and UMIs it can often be helpful to analyze the complexity of expression within a single cell. scCustomize provides functions to add two of these metrics to meta data.

Cell Complexity (log10(nFeature) / log10(nCount))

scCustomize contains easy shortcut function to add a measure of cell complexity/novelty that can sometimes be useful to filter low quality cells. The metric is calculated by calculating the result of log10(nFeature) / log10(nCount).

# These defaults can be run just by providing accepted species name
pbmc <- Add_Cell_Complexity(object = pbmc)

NOTE: The function also works seemlessly with LIGER objects.

Add Top Percent Expression QC Metric

Additionally, (or alternatively), scCustomize contains another metric of complexity which is the top percent expression. The user supplies an integer value for num_top_genes (default is 50) which species the number of genes and the function returns percentage of counts occupied by top XX genes in each cell.

# These defaults can be run just by providing accepted species name
pbmc <- Add_Top_Gene_Pct_Seurat(seurat_object = pbmc, num_top_genes = 50)

Add All Cell QC Metrics with Single Function

To simplify the process of adding cell QC metrics scCustomize contains a wrapper function which can be customized to add all or some of the available QC metrics. The default parameters of the function Add_Cell_QC_Metrics will add:

  • Mitochondrial and Ribosomal Percentages (default and custom species).
  • Cell Complexity (log10(nFeature) / log10(nCount).
  • Top XX Gene Percentage.
  • Percentage of counts for IEG (human and mouse only).
  • OXPHOS, APOP, and DNA Repair pathways (supported species only).
  • Cell Cycle Scoring (Human only).
pbmc <- Add_Cell_QC_Metrics(seurat_object = pbmc, species = "human")

Meta Data

scCustomize contains a set of functions to aid in use of meta data both within and outside of objects.

Extract all meta data (cell-level) from object

Fetch_Meta() functions as simple getter function to obtain meta data from object and return data.frame.

meta_data <- Fetch_Meta(object = pbmc)

head(meta_data, 10)
orig.ident nCount_RNA nFeature_RNA seurat_annotations sample_id batch
AAACATACAACCAC pbmc3k 2419 779 Memory CD4 T sample3 Batch2
AAACATTGAGCTAC pbmc3k 4903 1352 B sample5 Batch2
AAACATTGATCAGC pbmc3k 3147 1129 Memory CD4 T sample4 Batch2
AAACCGTGCTTCCG pbmc3k 2639 960 CD14+ Mono sample1 Batch2
AAACCGTGTATGCG pbmc3k 980 521 NK sample4 Batch1
AAACGCACTGGTAC pbmc3k 2163 781 Memory CD4 T sample6 Batch2
AAACGCTGACCAGT pbmc3k 2175 782 CD8 T sample3 Batch1
AAACGCTGGTTCTT pbmc3k 2260 790 CD8 T sample4 Batch2
AAACGCTGTAGCCA pbmc3k 1275 532 Naive CD4 T sample6 Batch2
AAACGCTGTTTCTG pbmc3k 1103 550 FCGR3A+ Mono sample3 Batch2

Extract sample-level meta data from object

While cell-level meta data is helpful in some situations often all that is required is sample-level meta data. This can easily be extracted and filtered using Extract_Sample_Meta().

sample_meta <- Extract_Sample_Meta(object = pbmc, sample_name = "sample_id")
orig.ident seurat_annotations sample_id batch
1 pbmc3k CD14+ Mono sample1 Batch2
2 pbmc3k NA sample2 Batch2
3 pbmc3k Memory CD4 T sample3 Batch2
4 pbmc3k Memory CD4 T sample4 Batch2
5 pbmc3k B sample5 Batch2
6 pbmc3k Memory CD4 T sample6 Batch2
Remove columns that are not relevant on sample level

As you can see by default Extract_Sample_Meta removes a default set of columns (see documentation) which do not provide meaningful sample-level information (e.g., nFeature_RNA). However, you may want to remove other columns too. This can be achieved using either positive or negative selection using variables_include or variables_exclude parameters.

sample_meta <- Extract_Sample_Meta(object = pbmc, sample_name = "sample_id", variables_exclude = c("nFeature_RNA",
    "nCount_RNA", "seurat_annotations", "orig.ident"))
sample_id batch
1 sample1 Batch2
2 sample2 Batch2
3 sample3 Batch2
4 sample4 Batch2
5 sample5 Batch2
6 sample6 Batch2
Merge with sample-level summary statistic data

While some original number columns are not valid at sample-level it can be valuable to get summary information for those variables. This can be achieved by merging outputs with Median_Stats function.

sample_meta <- Extract_Sample_Meta(object = pbmc, sample_name = "sample_id", variables_exclude = c("nFeature_RNA",
    "nCount_RNA", "seurat_annotations", "orig.ident"))

sample_median <- Median_Stats(seurat_object = pbmc, group_by_var = "sample_id")

sample_merged <- right_join(x = sample_meta, y = sample_median)
sample_id batch Median_nCount_RNA Median_nFeature_RNA
1 sample1 Batch2 2237.0 830.0
2 sample2 Batch2 2223.0 810.0
3 sample3 Batch2 2197.0 816.0
4 sample4 Batch2 2234.5 815.5
5 sample5 Batch2 2110.0 797.5
6 sample6 Batch2 2168.0 820.0
7 Totals (All Cells) NA 2196.0 816.0

Add sample-level meta data to object

scCustomize provides easy function to add sample-level meta data to object without the need to first convert it to cell-level meta data. This makes adding meta data from summary or supplemental tables to cell level object data very easy.

In order to add meta data you will need to specify:

  • Seurat Object with @meta.data column that matches sample-level meta data (often “orig.ident”).
  • Sample-level meta data/file. Can be either a data.frame or tibble in environment or a path to file to read.
  • Joining parameters. Define the column names the specify matching information in Seurat object and sample-level meta data.

This is example command:

obj <- Add_Sample_Meta(seurat_object = obj, meta_data = sample_meta, join_by_seurat = "orig.ident",
    join_by_meta = "sample_id")

Add feature meta data

Starting in Seurat V5 each assay now possess it’s own meta.data slot which is feature-level meta data. During course of normal analysis this is where information on variable features is stored. However, we can also use it to store alternate feature names, in most cases this is Ensembl IDs matching the symbols used in object creation/analysis.

scCustomize provides the function Add_Alt_Feature_ID() to automatically match and add these features using the same files used in object creation. Users only need to supply either path to the features.tsv.gz file or the hdf5 file produced from Cell Ranger output.

# Using features.tsv.gz file
obj <- Add_Alt_Feature_ID(seurat_object = obj,
features_tsv = "sample01/outs/filtered_feature_bc_matrix/features.tsv.gz", assay = "RNA")

# Using hdf5 file
obj <- Add_Alt_Feature_ID(seurat_object = obj,
hdf5_file = "sample01/outs/outs/filtered_feature_bc_matrix.h5"", assay = "RNA")

NOTE: If using features.tsv.gz file the file from either filtered or raw outputs can be used as they are identical.

NOTE: If using hdf5 file the file from either filtered_feature_bc or raw_feature_bc can be used as the features slot is identical. Though it is faster to load filtered_feature_bc file due to droplet filtering.

Check for Features/Genes

scCustomize also makes forward-facing a number of utilities that are used internally in functions but may also have utility on their own.

Gene_Present() to check for features.

Gene_Present is fairly basic function to check if feature exists in data. It can be used with Seurat or LIGER objects as well as generic data formats (Matrix, data.frame, tibble).

In addition to some warning messages Gene_Present returns a list with 3 entries when run:

  • found_features: features found in the data.
  • bad_features: features not found in the data.
  • wrong_case_found_features: features found but in different case than present in input gene list.
    • If bad_features > 0 then Gene_Present will convert the gene listbad_features` to all upper case and to sentence case and check against all possible features to see if wrong case was provided.
# Example gene list with all examples (found genes, wrong case (lower) and misspelled (CD8A
# forgetting to un-shift when typing 8))
gene_input_list <- c("CD14", "CD3E", "Cd4", "CD*A")

genes_present <- Gene_Present(data = pbmc, gene_list = gene_input_list)
## Warning: `Gene_Present()` was deprecated in scCustomize 2.1.0.
##  Please use `Feature_Present()` instead.
##  Please adjust code now to prepare for full deprecation.
## This warning is displayed once every 8 hours.
## Call `lifecycle::last_lifecycle_warnings()` to see where this warning was
## generated.
## Warning: The following features were omitted as they were not found:
##  Cd4 and CD*A
## Warning: NOTE: However, the following features were found: CD4
##  Please check intended case of features provided.

Now let’s look at the output:

genes_present
## $found_features
## [1] "CD14" "CD3E"
## 
## $bad_features
## [1] "Cd4"  "CD*A"
## 
## $wrong_case_found_features
## [1] "CD4"

Turn warnings/messages off.

By default Gene_Present has 3 sets of warnings/messages it prints to console when it finds issues. If using the function yourself on its own or wrapped inside your own function and you prefer no messages each of these can be toggled using optional parameters.

  • case_check_msg prints and list of features if alternate case features are found in data.
  • omit_warn prints warning and list of all features not found in data.
  • print_msg prints message if all features in gene_list are found in data.

Check for updated gene symbols

In order to keep run times down and support offer greater support for offline use Gene_Present does not include a check for updated gene symbols. If you’re dataset is from human cells/donors you can simply supply the not found features from Gene_Present to Seurat’s UpdateSymbolList function.

gene_input_list <- c("CD14", "CD3E", "Cd4", "CD*A", "SEPT1")

genes_present <- Gene_Present(data = pbmc, gene_list = gene_input_list)
## Warning: The following features were omitted as they were not found:
##  Cd4 and CD*A
## Warning: NOTE: However, the following features were found: CD4
##  Please check intended case of features provided.
check_symbols <- UpdateSymbolList(symbols = genes_present[[2]], verbose = TRUE)
## Warning: No updated symbols found

Merging & Splitting Data/Objects

Merging raw data

It can often be advantageous to merge raw data before creating analysis objects vs creating lots of objects and merging them all later. scCustomize features a modified version of the internal LIGER function MergeSparseDataAll().

Merge_Sparse_Data_All() will combine a list of sparse matrices and return single sparse matrix. Additionally, by specifying the add_cell_ids parameter you can specify a prefix to be added to the barcodes from each entry in the list (using “_” as delimiter).

This function can be especially useful when combined with any of the scCustomize’s Read_ data functions which automatically return named lists of matrices and the ability to specify sample orig.ident when creating Seurat objects. See Read & Write Vignette for more info on the data import functions.

# Read in data
GEO_10X <- Read10X_GEO(data_dir = "assets/GSE152183_RAW_Marsh/")

# Merge data and add sample prefix
GEO_10X_merged <- Merge_Sparse_Data_All(matrix_list = GEO_10X, add_cell_ids = names(GEO_10X))

# Create Seurat Object and specify orig.ident location
GEO_10X_Seurat <- Seurat::CreateSeuratObject(counts = GEO_10X_merged, names.field = 1, names.delim = "_",
    min.features = 200, min.cells = 5)

Merging List of Seurat Objects

Sometimes it can be advantageous to create a list of multiple Seurat Objects in order to run similar pipeline on all objects in loop.

To facilitate ease in merging such lists into single object scCustomize contains simple wrapper Merge_Seurat_List that uses purrr::reduce() to merge all objects in list into single combined object

list_of_objects <- list(obj1, obj2, obj2, ..., obj10)

merged_seurat <- Merge_Seurat_List(list_seurat = list_of_objects)

# Can also add sample specific ids to each object during the merge
cell_ids <- c("sample1", "sample2", "sample3", ..., "sample10")

merged_seurat <- Merge_Seurat_List(list_seurat = list_of_objects, add.cell.ids = cell_ids)

Splitting Seurat V5 Layers

Seurat V5 objects now have the ability to split within the object into layers. However, I find that the syntax to do this is not the most intuitive and can be simplified with a new simple wrapper function: Split_Layers()

pbmc <- Split_Layers(seurat_object = pbmc, split.by = "sample_id")
##  Splitting layers within assay: RNA into 6 parts by "sample_id"
##  RNA is not Assay5, converting to Assay5 before splitting.

Split_Layers() defaults to “RNA” assay but can be used for any assay present in object (users should check whether splitting assay other than “RNA” is valid before proceeding).

Storing Misc Information in Seurat Objects

Seurat objects contain an extra empty slot that can be used to store any extra information desired.
scCustomize contains two functions Store_Misc_Info_Seurat and a wrapper around that function Store_Palette_Seurat to make this process easy.

# Data can be vectors or data.frames
misc_info <- "misc_vector_dataframe_list_etc"

# Add data to the @misc slot in Seurat Object
pbmc <- Store_Misc_Info_Seurat(seurat_object = pbmc, data_to_store = misc_info, data_name = "misc_info_name")

Storing Lists

If you are storing a list in the @misc slot there is additional parameter that dictates whether to store the information as a list or whether to store each entry in the list separately.

# Create list
misc_info <- list("misc_item1", "misc_item2", etc)

# Store the list directly
pbmc <- Store_Misc_Info_Seurat(seurat_object = pbmc, data_to_store = misc_info, data_name = "misc_info_name",
    list_as_list = TRUE)

# Store each entry in list as separate entity in `@misc` slot
pbmc <- Store_Misc_Info_Seurat(seurat_object = pbmc, data_to_store = misc_info, data_name = "misc_info_name",
    list_as_list = FALSE)

Storing Color Palettes

One of the most common times I use this function is to store color palettes associated with clustering or subclustering.
To make it easier to remember function call in this situation scCustomize contains a wrapper function Store_Palette_Seurat.

# Data can be vectors or data.frames
annotated_color_palette <- c("color1", "color2", "color3", "etc")

# Add data to the @misc slot in Seurat Object
pbmc <- Store_Palette_Seurat(seurat_object = pbmc, palette = annotated_color_palette, palette_name = "Round01_Color_Pal")

# Then you can easily call that palette (with tab completion) when plotting without ever
# needing to reload the palette in current environment
DimPlot(object = pbmc, cols = pbmc@misc$Round01_Color_Pal)

Modify Cell Barcodes in Raw Data

Sometimes, especially with public data, you may want to modify the cell barcode names before creating analysis object.

scCustomize contains a selection of functions to simplify this process:

Replace Suffixes

Replace_Suffix can be used on single matrix/data.frame or list of matrices/data.frames to modify to remove suffixes

# For single object
data_mod <- Replace_Suffix(data = raw_data, current_suffix = "-1", new_suffix = "-2")

# For list of objects containing same suffix
raw_data_list <- list(raw_data1, raw_data2, raw_data3, ..., raw_data10)

new_suffixes <- c("-1", "-2", "-3", ..., "-10")

data_mod <- Replace_Suffix(data = raw_data_list, current_suffix = "-1", new_suffix = new_suffixes)


# For list of objects containing different suffixes
raw_data_list <- list(raw_data1, raw_data2, raw_data3, ..., raw_data10)

old_suffixes <- c("-A", "-B", "-C", ..., "-J")
new_suffixes <- c("-1", "-2", "-3", ..., "-10")

data_mod <- Replace_Suffix(data = raw_data_list, current_suffix = old_suffixes, new_suffix = new_suffixes)

Strip Suffixes

Replace_Suffix can also be used to strip suffixes from data

# For single object
data_mod <- Replace_Suffix(data = raw_data, current_suffix = "-1", new_suffix = "")

Change Prefix/Suffix Delimiters

scCustomize has 3 functions to facilitate changing the type of delimiters present in cell barcodes.

These functions all take identical inputs and can be applied to either single matrix/data.frames or lists of matrices/data.frames.

data_mod <- Change_Delim_Prefix(data = raw_data, current_delim = ".", new_delim = "_")

data_mod <- Change_Delim_Suffix(data = raw_data, current_delim = ".", new_delim = "_")

data_mod <- Change_Delim_All(data = raw_data, current_delim = ".", new_delim = "_")