Installation

CellRank requires Python version >= 3.8 to run. We recommend using Miniconda to manage the environments.

Anaconda

CellRank can be installed via:

conda install -c conda-forge -c bioconda cellrank
# or with extra libraries, useful for large datasets
conda install -c conda-forge -c bioconda cellrank-krylov

If an error occurs during conda install -c conda-forge -c bioconda cellrank-krylov, please consult the Dependencies section below.

PyPI

CellRank is also available on PyPI:

pip install cellrank
# or with extra libraries, useful for large datasets
pip install 'cellrank[krylov]'
# or with external modules, see External API
pip install 'cellrank[external]'

If an error occurs during pip install 'cellrank[krylov]', please consult the Dependencies section below.

Development Version

To stay up-to-date with the newest version, run:

pip install git+https://github.com/theislab/cellrank@master

Dependencies

Some of the inference tasks that CellRank performs can be broken down to linear algebra problems. For example, we solve linear systems to compute fate probabilities and we compute partial Schur decompositions and find metastable states. For these computations to be scalable, we rely on highly optimized libraries which make use of sparsity structure, parallel implementations and efficient message passing implemented via PETSc and SLEPc. CellRank works without these as well, however, if you would like to apply it to large (>15k cells) datasets, we recommend you install them.

Below, we give details for installing both PETSc and SLEPc, in case you’ve had any issues when installing them through PyPI or Anaconda:

# note: conda alternatives are denoted by alt.

# update
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

# install a message passing interface and mpi4py
sudo apt-get install libopenmpi-dev  # alt.: conda install -c conda-forge openmpi
pip install --user mpi4py  # alt.: conda install -c anaconda mpi4py

# install petsc and and petsc4py
pip install --user petsc  # alt.: conda install -c conda-forge petsc
pip install --user petsc4py  # alt.: conda install -c conda-forge petsc4py

# install slepsc and slepsc4py
pip install --user slepc  # alt.: conda install -c conda-forge slepc
pip install --user slepc4py  # alt.: conda install -c conda-forge slepc4py

During installation of petsc, petsc4py, slepc, and slepc4py the following error might appear several times:

ERROR: Failed building wheel for [insert package name here]

but this doesn’t matter if the installer finally tells you:

Successfully installed [insert package name here]

On Mac OS, install MPICH as a message passing interface and then proceed as above, using either pip or the installation instructions given on the PETSc and SLEPc websites. The SLEPc homepage even offers a video tutorial explaining the installation.

If after reading this, you still can’t proceed with the installation, feel free to open a GitHub issue.