EISCA and EISTA: Full-Spectrum Pipelines for Single-Cell and Spatial Transcriptomics Analysis

Abstract

Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics are transforming our understanding of cellular heterogeneity and tissue organization, yet their analytical complexity remains a major bottleneck. Here, we present EISCA and EISTA, two standardized, end-to-end pipelines for single-cell RNA-seq and imaging-based spatial transcriptomics analysis. Built on the Nextflow nf-core framework, both pipelines implement modular, scalable, and reproducible workflows spanning primary, secondary, and tertiary analyses, from raw data processing to advanced downstream analyses. EISCA supports droplet- and plate-based scRNA-seq technologies, while EISTA is tailored for high-resolution spatial platforms including Vizgen MERFISH and 10x Xenium. Together, they integrate state-of-the-art methods for quality control, normalization, clustering, integration, cell-type annotation, differential expression, and cell-cell communication, with EISTA further enabling spatial statistical analyses. A central design principle is to balance standardization with flexibility: workflows can be executed end-to-end or modularly, enabling iterative, exploratory analyses with minimal overhead. Both pipelines deliver rapid preliminary results alongside an out-of-the-box report, facilitating immediate data assessment and accelerating downstream discovery. Case studies in plant immunity and human sepsis demonstrate that EISTA and EISCA reproducibly can be used to recover biologically meaningful insights. Collectively, these pipelines provide efficient, flexible, and scalable solutions for comprehensive single-cell and spatial transcriptomics analyses.