Analysis of scRNA-seq to examine the reaction of a subpopulation of ependymal cells, EpA cells, to spinal cord injury.

The neural stem cell capacity of the spinal cord is contained within the ependymal cell population. In this study, we examined the stem cell capacity of a small subpopulation of ependymal cells, EpA cells. We report that they account for nearly the entire in vitro neural stem cell potential of the adult spinal cord, and that they respond to spinal cord injury by dividing rapidly and giving rise to scar-forming progeny. Using scRNAseq, we show that EpA cells are highly differentiated ependymal cells that dedifferentiate to a stem cell-like transcriptional state after spinal cord injury.

This code was used to analyze a data set generated by single cell RNA sequencing, produced to examine the reaction of a subpopulation of ependymal cells (EpA cells) to spinal cord injury. The data set contains cells from spinal cords of Troy-CreERT2 mice on a Rosa26-tdTomato background. The data set is available on GEO with the accession number GSE192824.