CRAK-Velo: Chromatin Accessibility Kinetics integration improves RNA Velocity estimation

Abstract

RNA velocity has recently emerged as a key tool in the analysis of single-cell transcriptomic data, yet connecting RNA velocity analyses to underlying regulatory processes has proved challenging. Here we propose CRAK-Velo, a semi-mechanistic model which integrates chromatin accessibility data in the estimation of RNA velocities. CRAK-Velo provides biologically consistent estimates of developmental flows and enables accurate cell-type deconvolution, while additionally shining light on regulatory processes at the level of interactions between genes and chromatin regions.