Cellfate Pseudotime Gene Analysis

CellFateGenie Analysis

Use this skill when the user wants to identify genes that drive cell fate decisions along a developmental trajectory. CellFateGenie discovers pseudotime-associated genes using adaptive ridge regression and then scores lineage-specific fate-driving genes via manifold density estimation.

This skill is used after trajectory inference — the user must already have pseudotime values computed (e.g., from Palantir, VIA, or diffusion pseudotime).

Overview

CellFateGenie answers: "Which genes change most significantly along pseudotime, and which are specifically driving a particular lineage?" It works in two phases:

1. Gene selection — Adaptive Threshold Regression (ATR) iteratively removes low-coefficient genes while monitoring R² to find the minimal gene set that explains pseudotime
2. Lineage scoring — Mellon density estimation on the manifold identifies low-density transition regions, and lineage-specific variability scoring pinpoints fate-driving genes

Prerequisites

• Pseudotime: Must exist as a column in adata.obs. Compute first using Palantir, VIA, DPT, or any trajectory method.
• Mellon (optional but important): pip install mellon for density estimation. Without it, low_density() will fail.
• Expression data: Works on the .X matrix. Log-normalized data is fine (unlike SCENIC which needs raw counts).

Pipeline Steps

1. Initialize Fate object

import omicverse as ov

# pseudotime: column name in adata.obs containing pseudotime values
fate = ov.single.Fate(adata, pseudotime='dpt_pseudotime')
# Automatically uses GPU (PyTorchRidge) if CUDA available, else sklearn Ridge on CPU

2. Initial ridge regression (model_init)

coef_df = fate.model_init(
    test_size=0.3,           # Train/test split ratio
    alpha=0.1,               # Ridge regularization strength
    use_data_augmentation=False,  # Enable for noisy pseudotime
)
# Returns: DataFrame of gene coefficients
# Stores: fate.coef (all coefficients), fate.raw_r2, fate.raw_mse

3. Adaptive Threshold Regression (ATR) — feature selection

This is the core innovation. ATR iteratively removes genes with the smallest coefficients and monitors when R² starts dropping significantly:

threshold_df = fate.ATR(
    test_size=0.4,
    alpha=0.1,
    stop=500,    # Maximum iterations. Increase for more genes (default 100).
    flux=0.01,   # R² drop tolerance. When R² drops by more than flux from max, stop.
)
# Sets fate.coef_threshold internally
# Visualize the filtering curve:
fate.plot_filtering()  # Shows R² vs iteration, marks optimal threshold

4. Refit on selected genes (model_fit)

filter_coef_df = fate.model_fit(
    test_size=0.3,
    alpha=0.1,
)
# Returns: DataFrame of coefficients for genes above threshold only
# Stores: fate.filter_coef
# Compare: fate.get_r2('raw') vs fate.get_r2('filter') — filter R² should be close to raw

5. Statistical validation (kendalltau_filter)

kendall_df = fate.kendalltau_filter()
# Computes Kendall's tau rank correlation for each filtered gene vs pseudotime
# Returns: DataFrame with kendalltau_sta and pvalue per gene
# Confirms monotonic relationship — genes with high |tau| are truly pseudotime-associated

6. Mellon density estimation (low_density)

fate.low_density(
    n_components=10,     # Diffusion map components for manifold representation
    knn=30,              # k-nearest neighbors for density estimation
    alpha=0.0,           # Mellon regularization
    seed=0,
    pca_key='X_pca',     # PCA embedding to use
)
# Stores: adata.obs['mellon_log_density_lowd']
# Low-density regions = developmental transition points (branching, commitment)

7. Lineage-specific scoring (lineage_score)

fate.lineage_score(
    cluster_key='leiden',              # Clustering column in adata.obs
    lineage=['20', '17'],              # Cluster labels defining the lineage of interest
    cell_mask='specification',         # How to select cells: 'specification' uses lineage list
    density_key='mellon_log_density_lowd',
)
# Stores: adata.var['change_scores_lineage']
# High scores = genes with high expression variability specifically in that lineage

8. Identify fate-driving genes

# Intersect ATR-selected genes with lineage-specific scores
fate_genes = adata.var.loc[fate.filter_coef.index, 'change_scores_lineage']
top_fate_genes = fate_genes.sort_values(ascending=False).head(20)
print(top_fate_genes)

Data Augmentation

For noisy pseudotime estimates, enable augmentation to improve robustness:

fate.model_init(
    use_data_augmentation=True,
    augmentation_strategy='jitter_pseudotime_noise',  # or 'gene_expression_noise', 'both'
    augmentation_intensity=0.05,  # Noise magnitude (fraction of range)
)
# Same parameters available in ATR() and model_fit()

ATAC Mode

CellFateGenie also works with scATAC-seq data:

fate.atac_init(...)          # Initialize for ATAC peak data
fate.get_related_peak(...)   # Find peaks associated with fate genes

Visualization

# ATR filtering curve — shows R² vs iteration
fate.plot_filtering(figsize=(3, 3))

# Model fit quality
fate.plot_fitting(type='raw')     # All genes
fate.plot_fitting(type='filter')  # ATR-selected genes only

# Color-coded by cluster
fate.plot_color_fitting(type='filter', cluster_key='leiden')

Critical API Reference

Pseudotime column must exist in adata.obs

# CORRECT
fate = ov.single.Fate(adata, pseudotime='dpt_pseudotime')

# WRONG — column doesn't exist
# fate = ov.single.Fate(adata, pseudotime='pseudotime')  # KeyError if not in adata.obs

ATR flux controls sensitivity

The flux parameter (default 0.01) determines when ATR stops removing genes. Lower flux = more genes retained (stricter R² preservation). Higher flux = fewer genes (more aggressive filtering).

low_density requires mellon package

# WRONG — mellon not installed
# fate.low_density()  # ImportError: No module named 'mellon'

# FIX
# pip install mellon

Defensive Validation Patterns

# Verify pseudotime column exists
assert pseudotime_col in adata.obs.columns, \
    f"Pseudotime column '{pseudotime_col}' not in adata.obs. Compute trajectory first."

# Verify pseudotime has valid values (no NaN)
import numpy as np
assert not adata.obs[pseudotime_col].isna().any(), \
    f"Pseudotime column contains NaN. Filter cells or impute missing values."

# Verify mellon is installed (before low_density)
try:
    import mellon
except ImportError:
    print("WARNING: mellon not installed. Run: pip install mellon")

# Verify PCA exists (needed for low_density)
assert 'X_pca' in adata.obsm, "PCA required for low_density(). Run ov.pp.pca(adata) first."

# Verify lineage clusters exist (before lineage_score)
for cl in lineage_list:
    assert cl in adata.obs[cluster_key].values, \
        f"Cluster '{cl}' not found in adata.obs['{cluster_key}']. Available: {adata.obs[cluster_key].unique()}"

Troubleshooting

• KeyError on pseudotime column: The column name passed to Fate() doesn't exist in adata.obs. Check with adata.obs.columns.tolist().
• ImportError: No module named 'mellon': Install with pip install mellon. This is required for low_density() but not for ATR/model_fit.
• Low R² after ATR (<0.3): Pseudotime may not be well-correlated with gene expression. Try a different trajectory method or increase stop iterations.
• plot_filtering() shows flat curve: The dataset may have too few variable genes. Ensure HVG selection was done before CellFateGenie.
• GPU out of memory: CellFateGenie uses PyTorchRidge when CUDA is available. For large datasets, it falls back to CPU automatically, but you can force CPU by setting CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES="".
• lineage_score returns all zeros: The specified lineage clusters may have too few cells. Check cluster sizes with adata.obs[cluster_key].value_counts().

Examples

• "Find genes driving erythroid differentiation along my Palantir pseudotime."
• "Run CellFateGenie to identify fate-associated genes and plot the ATR filtering curve."
• "Score lineage-specific genes for the monocyte branch in my trajectory."

References

• Tutorials: t_cellfate.ipynb, t_cellfate_gene.ipynb, t_cellfate_genesets.ipynb
• Quick copy/paste commands: reference.md