Step 2: The Scone Workflow

K-nearest neighbors:

We read in input.scone.csv, which is our file modified (and renamed) from the get.marker.names() function. The K-nearest neighbor generation is derived from the Fast Nearest Neighbors (FNN) R package, within our function Fnn(), which takes as input the “input markers” to be used, along with the concatenated data previously generated, and the desired k. We advise the default selection to the total number of cells in the dataset divided by 100, as has been optimized on existing mass cytometry datasets. The output of this function is a matrix of each cell and the identity of its k-nearest neighbors, in terms of its row number in the dataset used here as input.

library(Sconify)
# Markers from the user-generated excel file
marker.file <- system.file('extdata', 'markers.csv', package = "Sconify")
markers <- ParseMarkers(marker.file)

# How to convert your excel sheet into vector of static and functional markers
markers
## $input
##  [1] "CD3(Cd110)Di"           "CD3(Cd111)Di"           "CD3(Cd112)Di"          
##  [4] "CD235-61-7-15(In113)Di" "CD3(Cd114)Di"           "CD45(In115)Di"         
##  [7] "CD19(Nd142)Di"          "CD22(Nd143)Di"          "IgD(Nd145)Di"          
## [10] "CD79b(Nd146)Di"         "CD20(Sm147)Di"          "CD34(Nd148)Di"         
## [13] "CD179a(Sm149)Di"        "CD72(Eu151)Di"          "IgM(Eu153)Di"          
## [16] "Kappa(Sm154)Di"         "CD10(Gd156)Di"          "Lambda(Gd157)Di"       
## [19] "CD24(Dy161)Di"          "TdT(Dy163)Di"           "Rag1(Dy164)Di"         
## [22] "PreBCR(Ho165)Di"        "CD43(Er167)Di"          "CD38(Er168)Di"         
## [25] "CD40(Er170)Di"          "CD33(Yb173)Di"          "HLA-DR(Yb174)Di"       
## 
## $functional
##  [1] "pCrkL(Lu175)Di"  "pCREB(Yb176)Di"  "pBTK(Yb171)Di"   "pS6(Yb172)Di"   
##  [5] "cPARP(La139)Di"  "pPLCg2(Pr141)Di" "pSrc(Nd144)Di"   "Ki67(Sm152)Di"  
##  [9] "pErk12(Gd155)Di" "pSTAT3(Gd158)Di" "pAKT(Tb159)Di"   "pBLNK(Gd160)Di" 
## [13] "pP38(Tm169)Di"   "pSTAT5(Nd150)Di" "pSyk(Dy162)Di"   "tIkBa(Er166)Di"
# Get the particular markers to be used as knn and knn statistics input
input.markers <- markers[[1]]
funct.markers <- markers[[2]]

# Selection of the k. See "Finding Ideal K" vignette
k <- 30

# The built-in scone functions
wand.nn <- Fnn(cell.df = wand.combined, input.markers = input.markers, k = k)
# Cell identity is in rows, k-nearest neighbors are columns
# List of 2 includes the cell identity of each nn, 
#   and the euclidean distance between
#   itself and the cell of interest

# Indices
str(wand.nn[[1]])
##  int [1:1000, 1:30] 404 705 292 388 959 345 725 766 692 897 ...
wand.nn[[1]][1:20, 1:10]
##       [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] [,6] [,7] [,8] [,9] [,10]
##  [1,]  404  927  851  484  217  401  743   51  141   622
##  [2,]  705  856  993  289  687  904  863  495  542   500
##  [3,]  292  729  601   22  896  833  907  174  196   751
##  [4,]  388  309  534  578  611  853  757  588  314   494
##  [5,]  959  696  374  413  965  130  836  213  977   570
##  [6,]  345  364  852  528  900   10  317  182  199   359
##  [7,]  725  844  152  925  807   69  602   90  161   413
##  [8,]  766  327  295  441  566  159  812  729  818   907
##  [9,]  692  291  941  519  985  723  208   48  852   672
## [10,]  897  359  565  775  169  484  865  885  199   387
## [11,]   31  788  591  825  663  456  466  904  736   133
## [12,]  140  944  558  711  785  254  791  381  640   186
## [13,]  365  951  872  369  195  495  965  696  674    17
## [14,]  799  695  352  855  115  667  134  620  892   171
## [15,]  723  677  948  379  775  251   36  364  556   678
## [16,]  492  131  896    4  793  734  641   46  754   886
## [17,]  696  720  365  965  607  979  785  570  603   195
## [18,]  637  842  470  300  101  247  571  268  646   194
## [19,]  477  615  780  976  828  457  939  306  343   817
## [20,]  855    5  965  667  558  352  839  476  681   225
# Distance
str(wand.nn[[2]])
##  num [1:1000, 1:30] 2.91 3.32 3.23 2.4 2.52 ...
wand.nn[[2]][1:20, 1:10]
##           [,1]     [,2]     [,3]     [,4]     [,5]     [,6]     [,7]     [,8]
##  [1,] 2.907990 3.315326 3.494212 3.599459 3.634984 3.653628 3.661115 3.726571
##  [2,] 3.322654 3.936249 4.043499 4.061484 4.088056 4.710420 4.836712 4.917987
##  [3,] 3.233651 3.637817 3.730389 4.000872 4.082943 4.173731 4.191401 4.238371
##  [4,] 2.397645 2.616470 2.634033 2.887600 2.972622 3.034286 3.119821 3.134913
##  [5,] 2.522522 2.594668 2.654381 2.673904 2.730371 2.776866 2.795728 2.805107
##  [6,] 3.507298 3.844216 3.861746 3.970851 4.028671 4.422518 4.426944 4.447827
##  [7,] 3.095493 3.748259 3.776606 3.786670 3.822604 3.864378 3.879198 3.916573
##  [8,] 3.304337 3.411283 3.435706 3.487093 3.524122 3.568235 3.618231 3.682096
##  [9,] 4.181244 4.308902 4.463714 4.659617 4.740539 4.801515 4.872632 4.898085
## [10,] 2.421302 2.902257 2.951655 2.972916 2.987907 3.012184 3.078784 3.080089
## [11,] 3.030025 3.032456 3.305017 3.310881 3.352035 3.403182 3.464850 3.500371
## [12,] 3.422645 3.426998 3.578335 3.581049 3.638779 3.703243 3.709984 3.735610
## [13,] 2.921099 3.135549 3.151006 3.331935 3.383372 3.386441 3.396874 3.437473
## [14,] 2.577371 2.680930 2.732229 2.742776 2.825349 2.854281 2.930088 3.027255
## [15,] 3.900709 3.913386 4.312620 4.370300 4.544791 4.557106 4.571585 4.605655
## [16,] 3.432329 3.475996 3.525090 3.645820 3.672116 3.692707 3.743823 3.760203
## [17,] 1.758925 2.339503 2.571217 2.625114 2.686341 2.689488 2.807265 2.929386
## [18,] 3.426378 3.571378 3.660410 3.791979 3.843100 4.040735 4.044435 4.169817
## [19,] 4.125997 4.212677 4.224849 4.313776 4.344830 4.352267 4.371517 4.396136
## [20,] 2.897782 2.980361 3.043255 3.063609 3.099520 3.120598 3.124115 3.134536
##           [,9]    [,10]
##  [1,] 3.767352 3.813664
##  [2,] 4.953249 4.960026
##  [3,] 4.385018 4.426047
##  [4,] 3.163289 3.328066
##  [5,] 2.816208 2.875299
##  [6,] 4.472996 4.535436
##  [7,] 3.931665 3.935371
##  [8,] 3.812958 3.844736
##  [9,] 4.975107 4.981736
## [10,] 3.104128 3.105719
## [11,] 3.561672 3.618338
## [12,] 3.760073 3.787883
## [13,] 3.438808 3.522970
## [14,] 3.042406 3.115715
## [15,] 4.615802 4.625045
## [16,] 3.789584 3.820932
## [17,] 2.961424 2.967181
## [18,] 4.176826 4.177199
## [19,] 4.440960 4.545927
## [20,] 3.159029 3.208409

Finding scone values:

This function iterates through each KNN, and performs a series of calculations. The first is fold change values for each maker per KNN, where the user chooses whether this will be based on medians or means. The second is a statistical test, where the user chooses t test or Mann-Whitney U test. I prefer the latter, because it does not assume any properties of the distributions. Of note, the p values are adjusted for false discovery rate, and therefore are called q values in the output of this function. The user also inputs a threshold parameter (default 0.05), where the fold change values will only be shown if the corresponding statistical test returns a q value below said threshold. Finally, the “multiple.donor.compare” option, if set to TRUE will perform a t test based on the mean per-marker values of each donor. This is to allow the user to make comparisons across replicates or multiple donors if that is relevant to the user’s biological questions. This function returns a matrix of cells by computed values (change and statistical test results, labeled either marker.change or marker.qvalue). This matrix is intermediate, as it gets concatenated with the original input matrix in the post-processing step (see the relevant vignette). We show the code and the output below. See the post-processing vignette, where we show how this gets combined with the input data, and additional analysis is performed.

wand.scone <- SconeValues(nn.matrix = wand.nn, 
                      cell.data = wand.combined, 
                      scone.markers = funct.markers, 
                      unstim = "basal")

wand.scone
## # A tibble: 1,000 × 34
##    `pCrkL(Lu175)Di.IL7.qvalue` pCREB(Yb176)Di.IL7.qvalu…¹ pBTK(Yb171)Di.IL7.qv…²
##                          <dbl>                      <dbl>                  <dbl>
##  1                       1.000                      0.970                  0.978
##  2                       0.827                      1                      0.784
##  3                       0.970                      0.970                  0.830
##  4                       0.778                      0.970                  0.740
##  5                       0.953                      1                      0.830
##  6                       0.958                      1                      0.912
##  7                       0.994                      1                      0.941
##  8                       0.952                      0.970                  0.968
##  9                       0.937                      1                      0.912
## 10                       0.953                      1                      0.941
## # ℹ 990 more rows
## # ℹ abbreviated names: ¹​`pCREB(Yb176)Di.IL7.qvalue`,
## #   ²​`pBTK(Yb171)Di.IL7.qvalue`
## # ℹ 31 more variables: `pS6(Yb172)Di.IL7.qvalue` <dbl>,
## #   `cPARP(La139)Di.IL7.qvalue` <dbl>, `pPLCg2(Pr141)Di.IL7.qvalue` <dbl>,
## #   `pSrc(Nd144)Di.IL7.qvalue` <dbl>, `Ki67(Sm152)Di.IL7.qvalue` <dbl>,
## #   `pErk12(Gd155)Di.IL7.qvalue` <dbl>, `pSTAT3(Gd158)Di.IL7.qvalue` <dbl>, …

For programmers: performing additional per-KNN statistics

If one wants to export KNN data to perform other statistics not available in this package, then I provide a function that produces a list of each cell identity in the original input data matrix, and a matrix of all cells x features of its KNN.

I also provide a function to find the KNN density estimation independently of the rest of the “scone.values” analysis, to save time if density is all the user wants. With this density estimation, one can perform interesting analysis, ranging from understanding phenotypic density changes along a developmental progression (see post-processing vignette for an example), to trying out density-based binning methods (eg. X-shift). Of note, this density is specifically one divided by the aveage distance to k-nearest neighbors. This specific measure is related to the Shannon Entropy estimate of that point on the manifold (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01068081/document).

I use this metric to avoid the unusual properties of the volume of a sphere as it increases in dimensions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_of_an_n-ball). This being said, one can modify this vector to be such a density estimation (example http://www.cs.haifa.ac.il/~rita/ml_course/lectures_old/KNN.pdf), by treating the distance to knn as the radius of a n-dimensional sphere and incoroprating said volume accordingly.

An individual with basic programming skills can iterate through these elements to perform the statistics of one’s choosing. Examples would include per-KNN regression and classification, or feature imputation. The additional functionality is shown below, with the example knn.list in the package being the first ten instances:

# Constructs KNN list, computes KNN density estimation
wand.knn.list <- MakeKnnList(cell.data = wand.combined, nn.matrix = wand.nn)
wand.knn.list[[8]]
## # A tibble: 30 × 51
##    `CD3(Cd110)Di` `CD3(Cd111)Di` `CD3(Cd112)Di` `CD235-61-7-15(In113)Di`
##             <dbl>          <dbl>          <dbl>                    <dbl>
##  1         -0.492        -0.495         -0.352                    -0.456
##  2         -0.194        -0.475         -0.0613                   -0.137
##  3         -0.541         0.434         -0.508                    -0.981
##  4         -0.620        -1.06          -0.0891                    0.454
##  5         -0.165        -0.0847        -0.159                    -1.76 
##  6         -0.360        -0.314         -0.345                    -1.33 
##  7         -0.494        -0.108          0.702                    -0.969
##  8         -0.287        -0.0939        -0.108                    -1.65 
##  9         -0.128        -0.141         -0.246                     0.273
## 10         -0.374        -0.508          0.725                    -1.20 
## # ℹ 20 more rows
## # ℹ 47 more variables: `CD3(Cd114)Di` <dbl>, `CD45(In115)Di` <dbl>,
## #   `CD19(Nd142)Di` <dbl>, `CD22(Nd143)Di` <dbl>, `IgD(Nd145)Di` <dbl>,
## #   `CD79b(Nd146)Di` <dbl>, `CD20(Sm147)Di` <dbl>, `CD34(Nd148)Di` <dbl>,
## #   `CD179a(Sm149)Di` <dbl>, `CD72(Eu151)Di` <dbl>, `IgM(Eu153)Di` <dbl>,
## #   `Kappa(Sm154)Di` <dbl>, `CD10(Gd156)Di` <dbl>, `Lambda(Gd157)Di` <dbl>,
## #   `CD24(Dy161)Di` <dbl>, `TdT(Dy163)Di` <dbl>, `Rag1(Dy164)Di` <dbl>, …
# Finds the KNN density estimation for each cell, ordered by column, in the 
# original data matrix
wand.knn.density <- GetKnnDe(nn.matrix = wand.nn)
str(wand.knn.density)
##  num [1:1000] 0.26 0.201 0.221 0.298 0.34 ...