We introduce TreeTop, an algorithm for single cell data analysis to identify and assign a branching score to branch points in biological processes which may have multi-level branching hierarchies. We demonstrate branch point identification for processes with varying topologies, including T-cell maturation, B-cell differentiation and hematopoiesis. Our analyses are consistent with recent experimental studies suggesting a shallower hierarchy of differentiation events in hematopoiesis, rather than the classical multi-level hierarchy.
Keywords: computational biology; proteomics; single cell RNA‐seq; trajectory inference.
© 2019 The Authors. Published under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.