Transcriptome Deconvolution of Heterogeneous Tumor Samples with Immune Infiltration

Transcriptome deconvolution in cancer and other heterogeneous tissues remains challenging. Available methods lack the ability to estimate both component-specific proportions and expression profiles for individual samples. We present DeMixT, a new tool to deconvolve high-dimensional data from mixtures of more than two components. DeMixT implements an iterated conditional mode algorithm and a novel gene-set-based component merging approach to improve accuracy. In a series of experimental validation studies and application to TCGA data, DeMixT showed high accuracy. Improved deconvolution is an important step toward linking tumor transcriptomic data with clinical outcomes. An R package, scripts, and data are available: https://github.com/wwylab/DeMixTallmaterials.