# UCell and pyUCell: single-cell gene signature scoring for R and Python

**Authors:** Massimo Andreatta, Santiago J Carmona

PMC · DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btag055 · 2026-02-03

## TL;DR

UCell and pyUCell are tools for scoring gene signatures in single-cell data using R and Python, integrating with major analysis platforms.

## Contribution

UCell v2 introduces a unified and efficient rank-based signature scoring framework for single-cell data in R and Python.

## Key findings

- UCell and pyUCell provide fast and robust implementations for gene signature scoring.
- They integrate with major single-cell analysis ecosystems like Seurat and scanpy.

## Abstract

Gene signature scoring provides a simple yet powerful approach for quantifying biological signals within single-cell omics datasets. UCell and pyUCell offer fast and robust implementations of rank-based signature scoring for R and Python, respectively, integrating seamlessly with leading single-cell analysis ecosystems such as Seurat, Bioconductor, and scanpy/scverse.

UCell v2 is distributed as an R package by BioConductor (https://bioconductor.org/packages/UCell/) and as a Python package by pyPI (https://pypi.org/project/pyucell/).

## Full-text entities

- **Diseases:** Cancer (MESH:D009369)
- **Chemicals:** CosMx (-)

## Figures

1 figure with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12925249/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12925249