A2Sign

A2Sign identifies cell-type-specific molecular signatures from transcriptomic datasets using an agnostic, data-driven approach that does not require prior knowledge of the cell types present.

Key Features:

• Agnostic Approach: Operates without requiring predefined cell-type information, enabling discovery directly from transcriptomic data.
• Non-Negative Tensor Factorization (NTF): Decomposes multi-dimensional transcriptomic data into non-negative components corresponding to molecular signatures.
• Reduction of Collinearities: NTF decomposition reduces collinearities in transcriptomic measurements to clarify biological signals.
• Inter-Individual Variability: Accounts for variability between individuals to identify signatures that are robust across samples.
• Universal Application: Applicable to any tissue type, including both healthy and pathogenic contexts.
• Integration with NMTF Package: Implements non-negative tensor factorization using the NMTF package for computational factorization.

Scientific Applications:

• Cell-Type Deconvolution: Enables deconvolution of bulk transcriptome data to infer cell-type proportions.
• Discovery of Novel Signatures: Identifies molecular signatures without prior biological assumptions to support biomarker and interaction discovery.
• Immune Cell Analysis: Generates molecular signatures for deconvoluting up to 16 immune cell types from microarray and RNA-seq data.

Methodology:

Non-negative tensor factorization (NTF) is applied to multi-dimensional transcriptomic data using the NMTF package.