<p>A subject is an individual or donor. You can take multiple samples from the same subject, e.g. from different tissues, different timepoints etc.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-07-31T12:24:28.950Z
2021-07-31T12:24:28.950Z
Chris_Rands
<p>I am reading <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-019-0576-7" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> paper, where the authors mention</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We apply SAUCIE to the batch correcting, denoising and clustering of
an 11-million cell mass cytometry dataset with 180 samples from 40
subjects in a study of the dengue flavivirus</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What exactly is the difference between a “sample” and a “subject” in scRNA-Seq?</p>
<p>PS: here’s a possibly relevant visual from the paper, but I still couldn’t understand the difference
<a href="https://i.sstatic.net/DEUUU.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/DEUUU.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>

<scrnaseq>
Sample versus subject in scRNA-seq
# Sample versus subject in scRNA-seq

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-07-31)

I am reading [this](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-019-0576-7) paper, where the authors mention

> We apply SAUCIE to the batch correcting, denoising and clustering of
> an 11-million cell mass cytometry dataset with 180 samples from 40
> subjects in a study of the dengue flavivirus

What exactly is the difference between a “sample” and a “subject” in scRNA-Seq?

PS: here’s a possibly relevant visual from the paper, but I still couldn’t understand the difference
[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/DEUUU.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/DEUUU.jpg)

**Tags:** scrnaseq

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-07-31. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

A subject is an individual or donor. You can take multiple samples from the same subject, e.g. from different tissues, different timepoints etc.


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