Trajectory Inference with SCORPIUS#
SCORPIUS (Cannoodt 2016) is a linear-trajectory backend: it reduces the cells to a 1-D principal curve and reports each cell’s distance along that curve. There are no branch labels — pick SCORPIUS when biology says the differentiation is unbranched, or as a fast first pass before deciding which branching method to use.
Backend: pyscorpius — Python port of R dynverse/SCORPIUS.
Install#
pip install omicverse[trajectory]
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings("ignore", category=FutureWarning)
import omicverse as ov
ov.plot_set(font_path='Arial')
%load_ext autoreload
%autoreload 2
🔬 Starting plot initialization...
Using already downloaded Arial font from: /tmp/omicverse_arial.ttf
Registered as: Arial
🧬 Detecting GPU devices…
✅ NVIDIA CUDA GPUs detected: 1
• [CUDA 0] NVIDIA H100 80GB HBM3
Memory: 79.1 GB | Compute: 9.0
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🔖 Version: 2.2.1rc1 📚 Tutorials: https://omicverse.readthedocs.io/
✅ plot_set complete.
adata = ov.datasets.pancreatic_endocrinogenesis()
⚠️ File ./data/endocrinogenesis_day15.h5ad already exists
Loading data from ./data/endocrinogenesis_day15.h5ad
✅ Successfully loaded: 3696 cells × 27998 genes
adata = ov.pp.preprocess(adata, mode='shiftlog|pearson', n_HVGs=3000)
adata.raw = adata
adata = adata[:, adata.var.highly_variable_features]
ov.pp.scale(adata)
ov.pp.pca(adata, layer='scaled', n_pcs=50)
🔍 [2026-05-25 02:35:01] Running preprocessing in 'cpu' mode...
Begin robust gene identification
After filtration, 17750/27998 genes are kept.
Among 17750 genes, 16426 genes are robust.
✅ Robust gene identification completed successfully.
Begin size normalization: shiftlog and HVGs selection pearson
🔍 Count Normalization:
Target sum: 500000.0
Exclude highly expressed: True
Max fraction threshold: 0.2
⚠️ Excluding 1 highly-expressed genes from normalization computation
Excluded genes: ['Ghrl']
✅ Count Normalization Completed Successfully!
✓ Processed: 3,696 cells × 16,426 genes
✓ Runtime: 0.26s
🔍 Highly Variable Genes Selection (Experimental):
Method: pearson_residuals
Target genes: 3,000
Theta (overdispersion): 100
✅ Experimental HVG Selection Completed Successfully!
✓ Selected: 3,000 highly variable genes out of 16,426 total (18.3%)
✓ Results added to AnnData object:
• 'highly_variable': Boolean vector (adata.var)
• 'highly_variable_rank': Float vector (adata.var)
• 'highly_variable_nbatches': Int vector (adata.var)
• 'highly_variable_intersection': Boolean vector (adata.var)
• 'means': Float vector (adata.var)
• 'variances': Float vector (adata.var)
• 'residual_variances': Float vector (adata.var)
Time to analyze data in cpu: 2.17 seconds.
✅ Preprocessing completed successfully.
Added:
'highly_variable_features', boolean vector (adata.var)
'means', float vector (adata.var)
'variances', float vector (adata.var)
'residual_variances', float vector (adata.var)
'counts', raw counts layer (adata.layers)
End of size normalization: shiftlog and HVGs selection pearson
╭─ SUMMARY: preprocess ──────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Duration: 2.5622s │
│ Shape: 3,696 x 27,998 -> 3,696 x 16,426 │
│ │
│ CHANGES DETECTED │
│ ──────────────── │
│ ● VAR │ ✚ highly_variable (bool) │
│ │ ✚ highly_variable_features (bool) │
│ │ ✚ highly_variable_rank (float) │
│ │ ✚ means (float) │
│ │ ✚ n_cells (int) │
│ │ ✚ percent_cells (float) │
│ │ ✚ residual_variances (float) │
│ │ ✚ robust (bool) │
│ │ ✚ variances (float) │
│ │
│ ● UNS │ ✚ REFERENCE_MANU │
│ │ ✚ _ov_provenance │
│ │ ✚ history_log │
│ │ ✚ hvg │
│ │ ✚ log1p │
│ │ ✚ status │
│ │ ✚ status_args │
│ │
│ ● LAYERS │ ✚ counts (sparse matrix, 3696x16426) │
│ │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
╭─ SUMMARY: scale ───────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Duration: 0.7502s │
│ Shape: 3,696 x 3,000 (Unchanged) │
│ │
│ CHANGES DETECTED │
│ ──────────────── │
│ ● LAYERS │ ✚ scaled (array, 3696x3000) │
│ │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
computing PCA🔍
with n_comps=50
🖥️ Using sklearn PCA for CPU computation
🖥️ sklearn PCA backend: CPU computation
📊 PCA input data type: ArrayView, shape: (3696, 3000), dtype: float64
🔧 PCA solver used: covariance_eigh
finished✅ (11.51s)
╭─ SUMMARY: pca ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Duration: 11.5234s │
│ Shape: 3,696 x 3,000 (Unchanged) │
│ │
│ CHANGES DETECTED │
│ ──────────────── │
│ ● UNS │ ✚ scaled|original|cum_sum_eigenvalues │
│ │ ✚ scaled|original|pca_var_ratios │
│ │
│ ● OBSM │ ✚ scaled|original|X_pca (array, 3696x50) │
│ │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
We first inspect the variance explained by principal components to choose a practical PC range for neighbour and graph computations.
ov.utils.plot_pca_variance_ratio(adata, n_pcs=15)
ov.pl.umap(
adata,
color='clusters'
)
X_umap converted to UMAP to visualize and saved to adata.obsm['UMAP']
if you want to use X_umap, please set convert=False
SCORPIUS#
Traj=ov.single.TrajInfer(
adata,
basis='X_umap',
groupby='clusters',
use_rep='scaled|original|X_pca',
n_comps=50,
)
Traj.set_origin_cells('Ductal')
Traj.inference(method='scorpius', ndim=3)
Visualize pseudotime on UMAP#
ov.pl.embedding(
adata, basis='X_umap',
color=['clusters', 'scorpius_pseudotime'],
frameon='small',
cmap='magma',
)
Downstream notes#
SCORPIUS is linear by construction — there is no branch field to plot. If your topology might be branching, run 'tscan' / 'destiny' / 'slingshot' instead.
Reference#
Saelens W. et al. A comparison of single-cell trajectory inference methods. Nat Biotechnol 37, 547–554 (2019). doi:10.1038/s41587-019-0071-9
Recommended backend (Slingshot): t_traj_recommended
All zoo backends: zoo/index