A novel method for cell deconvolution using DNA methylation in PCA space

In this study, we present a novel method for reference-based cell deconvolution using data from DNA methylation arrays. Different from existing methods like IDOL-Ext, which operate on probe-level data, our approach represents features in the principal component analysis (PCA) space for cell type deconvolution.

Our method’s accuracy in estimating cell compositions is validated across various public datasets, including blood samples from glioma patients. It demonstrates precision comparable to IDOL-Ext, with R² values ranging from 0.73 to 0.99 for most cell types, while offering improved discrimination between similar cell types, particularly T cell subtypes in glioma patient samples (R² 0.42–0.75 vs. 0.36–0.66 for IDOL-Ext). However, both methods showed lower accuracy for certain cell types, such as memory CD8 T cells in glioma patients (R² 0.42 vs. 0.36 for IDOL-Ext), highlighting the challenges in distinguishing closely related cell populations. We have made this method available as an R package “BloodCellDecon” on GitHub.

Our study confirms the efficacy of cell type deconvolution in PCA space. The results indicate wide-ranging applicability and potential for adaptation to other forms of genomic data.