Developing a comprehensive database and search tool for single-cell ATAC-seq data

Single cell assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (scATAC-seq) is a technology that allows for analysis of chromatin accessibility at a single cell resolution. scATAC-seq is advancing our understanding of gene regulation, and has found many applications in cell development and disease. Despite the availability of several scATAC-seq datasets and their high applicability, we still lack a definitive scATAC-seq database, where a comprehensive collection of publicly available scATAC-seq datasets has been made available in a consistent format. To solve this, we have created scATAC.Explorer, an R accessible database and search tool, containing a curated collection of 39 currently available scATAC-seq datasets from a wide array of tissues and cell types. scATAC.Explorer allows fast query and retrieval of publicly available scATAC-seq datasets, and it contains accessibility matrices, cell type annotations and other metadata information for each dataset. scATAC.Explorer is available both in GitHub and as an R Bioconductor package, and can easily be integrated into existing R and Python analysis pipelines, allowing researchers to quickly analyze scATAC-seq data from multiple sources.