I have a count matrix consisting of cell surface protein abundances output from MissionBio's Tapestri platform using the TotalSeq-D Heme Oncology Cocktail from BioLegend.

I would like to assign cell types to individual cells based on the presence of these surface markers using a reference-based approach, but I am unsure if any exists. I have looked into the celldex package, but these reference databases are derived from bulk rna-seq datasets, which does not seem to be appropriate here.

I am also still quite new to the single-cell domain so it's unclear what the standard is with regards to assigning cell types based on cell surface proteins. In other words, is manual curation - based on canonical markers - or reference-based approaches used more commonly?

Thank you in advance for your input.