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Cell Ranger


Loupe

10x Genomics
Chromium Single Cell Gene Expression

Cell Multiplexing with cellranger multi

Cell Ranger 6.0 and later supports analyzing 3' Cell Multiplexing data with the cellranger multi pipeline.

Table of Contents

When to use the multi pipeline

The cellranger multi pipeline is required to analyze 3' Cell Multiplexing data. Otherwise, users can continue to use cellranger count.

3' GEX3' FBCellPlexUse multi?
YesYesYesRequired
YesYesNoOptional. Prefer count
YesNoYesRequired
YesNoNoOptional. Prefer count
NoYesNoOptional. Prefer count

Run cellranger mkfastq

First, follow the instructions on running cellranger mkfastq to generate FASTQ files. For example, if the flow cell ID was HAWT7ADXX, then cellranger mkfastq will output FASTQ files in HAWT7ADXX/outs/fastq_path. If you are already starting with FASTQ files, you can skip this step and proceed directly to run cellranger multi.

Run cellranger multi

Running cellranger multi requires a config CSV, described below, invoking the following arguments:

ArgumentDescription
--idA unique run ID string: e.g. sample345 that is also the output folder name. Cannot be more than 64 characters.
--csvPath to config CSV file with input libraries and analysis parameters.

The multi config CSV contains both the library definitions and experimental design variables. It is composed of up to four sections for 3' data: [gene-expression], [libraries], [feature], and [samples]. Example formats for different product configurations are below.

The [gene-expression] and [feature] sections have at most two columns (Field name and value), and are responsible for configuring their respective portions of the experiment. The [libraries] section specifies where input FASTQ files may be found and has at least three columns. The [samples] section specifies sample information for Cell Multiplexing and has at least two columns.

A template for a multi config CSV can be downloaded here and example multi config CSVs can be downloaded from 6.0 public datasets here.

Multi Config CSV
Section: [gene-expression]
FieldDescription
reference Path of folder containing 10x Genomics-compatible reference. Required for gene expression and Feature Barcode libraries.
min-assignment-confidence Optional. Introduced in Cell Ranger 6.0.2. The minimum estimated likelihood to call a sample as tagged with a Cell Multiplexing Oligo (CMO) instead of "Unassigned". Users may wish to tolerate a higher rate of mis-assignment in order to obtain more singlets to include in their analysis, or a lower rate of mis-assignment at the cost of obtaining fewer singlets. By default, this value is 0.9. Contact [email protected] for further advice.
cmo-set Optional. CMO set CSV file, declaring CMO constructs and associated barcodes. see CMO Reference section for more detail.
target-panel Optional. Path to a target panel CSV file or name of a 10x Genomics fixed gene panel (pathway, pan-cancer, immunology, neuroscience).
no-target-umi-filter Optional. Disable targeted UMI filtering stage. See Targeted Algorithms for details. Default: false.
r1-length Optional. Hard trim the input Read 1 of gene expression libraries to this length before analysis. Default: do not trim Read 1.
r2-length Optional. Hard trim the input Read 2 of gene expression libraries to this length before analysis. Default: do not trim Read 2.
chemistry Optional. Assay configuration. NOTE: by default, the assay configuration is detected automatically (recommended mode). Users will typically not need to specify a chemistry. Options are: 'auto' for autodetection, 'threeprime' for Single Cell 3', 'SC3Pv1' or 'SC3Pv2' or 'SC3Pv3' for Single Cell 3' v1/v2/v3, 'SC3Pv3HT' for Single Cell 3' v3.1 HT, 'SC-FB' for Single Cell Antibody-only 3' v2. Default: auto.
expect-cells Optional, recommended. Expected number of recovered cells. Default: 3000.
force-cells Optional. Force pipeline to use this number of cells, bypassing cell detection. Default: detect cells using EmptyDrops.
include-introns Optional. Include intronic reads in count. Default: false
no-secondary Optional. Disable secondary analysis, e.g. clustering. Default: false.
no-bam Optional. Do not generate a bam file. Default: false.
Section: [feature]
FieldDescription
reference Feature reference CSV file, declaring Feature Barcode constructs and associated barcodes. Required for Feature Barcode libraries, otherwise optional.
r1-length Optional. Hard trim the input Read 1 of Feature Barcode libraries to this length before analysis. Default: do not trim Read 1.
r2-length Optional. Hard trim the input Read 2 of Feature Barcode libraries to this length before analysis. Default: do not trim Read 2.
Section: [libraries] (see also Specifying Input FASTQ Files for cellranger multi)
ColumnDescription
fastq_id Required. The Illumina sample name to analyze. This will be as specified in the sample sheet supplied to mkfastq or bcl2fastq.
fastqs Required. The folder containing the FASTQ files to be analyzed. Generally, this will be the fastq_path folder generated by cellranger mkfastq.
lanes Optional. The lanes associated with this sample, separated by |. Defaults to using all lanes.
physical_library_id Optional. Library type. NOTE: by default, the library type is detected automatically based on specified feature_types (recommended mode). Users typically do not need to include the physical_library_id column in the CSV file.
feature_types Required. The underlying feature type of the library, which must be one of ‘Gene Expression’, ‘Antibody Capture’, ‘CRISPR Guide Capture’, or ‘Multiplexing Capture’.
subsample_rate Optional. The rate at which reads from the provided FASTQ files are sampled. Must be strictly greater than 0 and less than or equal to 1.
Section: [samples]
ColumnDescription
sample_id A name to identify a multiplexed sample. Must be alphanumeric with hyphens and/or underscores, and less than 64 characters. Required for cell multiplexing libraries.
cmo_ids The cell multiplexing oligo IDs used to multiplex this sample. If multiple CMOs were used per sample, separate IDs with a pipe (e.g., CMO301|CMO302). Required for cell multiplexing libraries.
description Optional. A description for the sample.
cd /home/jdoe/runs
cellranger multi --id=sample345 --csv=/home/jdoe/sample345.csv
Martian Runtime - v4.0.6
 
Running preflight checks (please wait)...
...

By default, cellranger will use all of the cores available on your system to execute pipeline stages. You can specify a different number of cores to use with the --localcores option; for example, --localcores=16 will limit cellranger to using up to sixteen cores at once. Similarly, --localmem will restrict the amount of memory (in GB) used by cellranger.

The pipeline will create a new folder named with the run ID you specified using the --id argument (e.g. /home/jdoe/runs/sample345) for its output. If this folder already exists, cellranger will assume it is an existing pipestance and attempt to resume running it.

Waiting 6 seconds for UI to do final refresh.
Pipestance completed successfully!
 
yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss Shutting down.
Saving pipestance info to "tiny/tiny.mri.tgz"

Example multi config CSVs

Here are a few example multi config CSVs for some common product configurations, along with simplified diagrams for the corresponding experimental set up. Make sure to replace /path/to with the actual full path to your data, and edit any text in red according to the experiment's sample/library/file names. The expect-cells option is recommended; up to 30,000 cells are supported for Cell Multiplexing.

Experimental DesignMulti config CSV
3' GEX with Cell Multiplexing, 1 CMO/sample


See example dataset
[gene-expression]
reference,/path/to/transcriptome
expect-cells, enter expected number of recovered cells
include-introns,true
[libraries] fastq_id,fastqs,feature_types gex1,/path/to/fastqs,Gene Expression mux1,/path/to/fastqs,Multiplexing Capture
[samples] sample_id,cmo_ids sample1,CMO301 sample2,CMO303
3' GEX with Cell Multiplexing, multiple CMOs/sample


See example dataset. Note usage of the | to separate CMO tags. Learn more about when to use multiple CMOs per sample here.
[gene-expression]
reference,/path/to/transcriptome
expect-cells, enter expected number of recovered cells
include-introns,true
[libraries] fastq_id,fastqs,feature_types gex1,/path/to/fastqs,Gene Expression mux1,/path/to/fastqs,Multiplexing Capture
[samples] sample_id,cmo_ids sample1,CMO301|CMO302 sample2,CMO303|CMO304
3' GEX with Cell Multiplexing and Feature Barcode


The Feature Barcode in this config CSV example ([libraries] section) is Antibody Capture. Use CRISPR Guide Capture for CRISPR Feature Barcode experiments.
[gene-expression]
reference,/path/to/transcriptome
expect-cells, enter expected number of recovered cells
include-introns,true
[feature] reference,/path/to/feature_reference.csv
[libraries] fastq_id,fastqs,feature_types gex1,/path/to/fastqs,Gene Expression abc1,/path/to/fastqs,Antibody Capture mux1,/path/to/fastqs,Multiplexing Capture
[samples] sample_id,cmo_ids sample1,CMO301 sample2,CMO303

CMO Reference

The cmo-set option in the [gene-expression] table of the multi config CSV allows you to provide a reference for custom Cell Multiplexing oligos (e.g., antibody TotalSeqA/B/C tags). The design of this reference is nearly identical to the Feature Barcode Reference used to describe Feature Barcodes, with one difference: the feature_type is required to be Multiplexing Capture instead of those feature types supported in the Feature Barcode reference. The id column may contain alphanumeric, underscore, and hyphen characters; special characters like a pipe (|) should not be used in this file (only for separating multiple CMO IDs from the same sample in config CSV).

Default CMO Reference

id,name,read,pattern,sequence,feature_type
CMO301,CMO301,R2,5P(BC),ATGAGGAATTCCTGC,Multiplexing Capture
CMO302,CMO302,R2,5P(BC),CATGCCAATAGAGCG,Multiplexing Capture
CMO303,CMO303,R2,5P(BC),CCGTCGTCCAAGCAT,Multiplexing Capture
CMO304,CMO304,R2,5P(BC),AACGTTAATCACTCA,Multiplexing Capture
CMO305,CMO305,R2,5P(BC),CGCGATATGGTCGGA,Multiplexing Capture
CMO306,CMO306,R2,5P(BC),AAGATGAGGTCTGTG,Multiplexing Capture
CMO307,CMO307,R2,5P(BC),AAGCTCGTTGGAAGA,Multiplexing Capture
CMO308,CMO308,R2,5P(BC),CGGATTCCACATCAT,Multiplexing Capture
CMO309,CMO309,R2,5P(BC),GTTGATCTATAACAG,Multiplexing Capture
CMO310,CMO310,R2,5P(BC),GCAGGAGGTATCAAT,Multiplexing Capture
CMO311,CMO311,R2,5P(BC),GAATCGTGATTCTTC,Multiplexing Capture
CMO312,CMO312,R2,5P(BC),ACATGGTCAACGCTG,Multiplexing Capture

The default CMO reference above is available as a downloadable CSV here.