{"title":"mcRigor: A Statistical Software Package for Evaluating and Optimizing Metacell Partitioning in Single-Cell Data Analysis.","authors":"Pan Liu, Jingyi Jessica Li","doi":"10.1177/15578666251383561","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Metacell partitioning is a common preprocessing step in single-cell data analysis, used to reduce sparsity by aggregating similar cells. However, existing metacell partitioning algorithms may inadvertently group heterogeneous cells, potentially biasing downstream analyses. The resulting metacell partitions can vary substantially with different hyperparameter settings, leaving users uncertain about which result to trust. The mcRigor R package offers a statistical method for evaluating and optimizing metacell partitioning in single-cell data analysis. This article provides instructions for installing and using mcRigor to support more rigorous and interpretable metacell-based workflows.</p>","PeriodicalId":15526,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Computational Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Computational Biology","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15578666251383561","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH METHODS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Metacell partitioning is a common preprocessing step in single-cell data analysis, used to reduce sparsity by aggregating similar cells. However, existing metacell partitioning algorithms may inadvertently group heterogeneous cells, potentially biasing downstream analyses. The resulting metacell partitions can vary substantially with different hyperparameter settings, leaving users uncertain about which result to trust. The mcRigor R package offers a statistical method for evaluating and optimizing metacell partitioning in single-cell data analysis. This article provides instructions for installing and using mcRigor to support more rigorous and interpretable metacell-based workflows.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Computational Biology is the leading peer-reviewed journal in computational biology and bioinformatics, publishing in-depth statistical, mathematical, and computational analysis of methods, as well as their practical impact. Available only online, this is an essential journal for scientists and students who want to keep abreast of developments in bioinformatics.
Journal of Computational Biology coverage includes:
-Genomics
-Mathematical modeling and simulation
-Distributed and parallel biological computing
-Designing biological databases
-Pattern matching and pattern detection
-Linking disparate databases and data
-New tools for computational biology
-Relational and object-oriented database technology for bioinformatics
-Biological expert system design and use
-Reasoning by analogy, hypothesis formation, and testing by machine
-Management of biological databases