alterlab-writing-tools

Build, slice, concatenate, read, and write AnnData annotated data matrices (obs, var, X, layers, obsm, uns) for single-cell analysis in the scverse ecosystem. Use when handling .h5ad files, managing cell and gene annotations, or wrangling single-cell matrices — this is the data-format skill, for analysis workflows use scanpy, for probabilistic models use scvi-tools, for population-scale queries use cellxgene-census. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

Infer gene regulatory networks (GRNs) from expression matrices using arboreto's scalable GRNBoost2 and GENIE3 tree-ensemble algorithms with Dask-distributed computation. Use when analyzing bulk or single-cell RNA-seq transcriptomics to map transcription-factor-to-target-gene regulatory interactions, build adjacency networks, or run the GRN-inference step of a SCENIC pipeline on large datasets. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

Manipulate biological sequences, parse FASTA/GenBank/PDB files, run phylogenetics, and access NCBI/PubMed programmatically via Biopython (Bio.SeqIO, Bio.Entrez, Bio.PDB, Bio.Blast). Use when scripting custom bioinformatics pipelines, batch-processing sequence files, automating BLAST, or fetching records from Entrez — for quick one-off database lookups use gget, for unified multi-service integration use bioservices. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

Query 40+ bioinformatics web services through one consistent Python API with bioservices (UniProt, KEGG, ChEMBL, Reactome, Ensembl, NCBI and more). Use when a workflow must hit multiple databases together, map identifiers across services, or run cross-database analyses — for quick single-database lookups use gget, for sequence and file manipulation use biopython. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

Query the CZ CELLxGENE Census (61M+ cells) programmatically via cellxgene-census and TileDB-SOMA, slicing expression by tissue, disease, or cell type and returning AnnData. Use when pulling reference single-cell RNA-seq data from the largest curated public atlas, running population-scale queries, or benchmarking your data against a reference — for analyzing your own dataset use scanpy or scvi-tools. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.