REACTOR: REgulon Activity analysis and Comparison Tool for single-cell transcriptOmics Research - UTU Research Portal

A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

REACTOR: REgulon Activity analysis and Comparison Tool for single-cell transcriptOmics Research;

Authors: Lindén, Markus; Zúñiga Norman, Sebastián I.; Välikangas, Tommi; Junttila, Sini; Suomi, Tomi; Rytkönen, Kalle T; Elo, Laura L.

Editors: Kihara Daisuke

Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)

Publication year: 2026

Journal: Bioinformatics

Article number: btag203

Volume: 42

Issue: 5

ISSN: 1367-4803

eISSN: 1367-4811

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btag203

Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: Open Access

Publication channel's open availability : Open Access publication channel

Web address : https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btag203

Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/523486404

Self-archived copy's licence: CC BY

Self-archived copy's version: Publisher`s PDF

Abstract

We introduce REACTOR, a computational tool designed to detect differential activity of transcriptional regulators and their target genes (regulons) in single-cell RNA-sequencing data. It expands the currently available framework for regulon analysis by introducing a robust statistical test to detect differential regulon activity between conditions, such as disease versus control, with multiple replicates. By contrasting different conditions, REACTOR enables identification of key condition- and cell type-specific regulons. To demonstrate the use of REACTOR, we illustrate its performance in a publicly available COVID-19 dataset.

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Funding information in the publication:
This work was supported by Vilho, Yrjö and Kalle Väisälä Foundation [to ML]; InFLAMES and DRDP programmes [to SIZN]; Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, Eemil Aaltonen Foundation, Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation, and Finnish Cultural Foundation [to KTR]; Research Council of Finland [310561, 329278, 335434, 335611, 341342, 364700 to LLE]; Sigrid Juselius Foundation; and Cancer Foundation Finland. Our research is also supported by Biocenter Finland, and ELIXIR Finland.