Knowledge-based inductive bias and domain adaptation for cell type annotation

Measurement techniques often result in domain gaps among batches of cellular data from a specific modality. The effectiveness of cross-batch annotation methods is influenced by inductive bias, which refers to a set of assumptions that describe the behavior of model predictions. Different annotation methods possess distinct inductive biases, leading to varying degrees of generalizability and interpretability. Given that certain cell types exhibit unique functional patterns, we hypothesize that the inductive biases of cell annotation methods should align with these biological patterns to produce meaningful predictions. In this study, we propose KIDA, Knowledge-based Inductive bias and Domain Adaptation. The knowledge-based inductive bias constrains the prediction rules learned from the reference dataset, composed of multiple batches, to functional patterns relevant to biology, thereby enhancing the generalization of the model to unseen batches. Since the query dataset also contains gaps from multiple batches, KIDA’s domain adaptation employs pseudo labels for self-knowledge distillation, effectively narrowing the distribution gap between model predictions and the query dataset. Benchmark experiments demonstrate that KIDA is capable of achieving accurate cross-batch cell type annotation. Knowledge-based inductive bias and domain adaptation can enhance the cell type annotation accuracy of deep learning models.