Single-cell transcriptional profiling reveals cellular and molecular diversity in human umbilical cord tissue and corresponding mesenchymal stem/stromal cell

Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) demonstrate great therapeutic potential in regenerative medicine. However, the differences between the transcriptome of MSCs from umbilical cord tissue and in vitro cell culture at single-cell level remain elusive. We obtained a large-scale single-cell transcriptome of total 21,172 single cells from human umbilical cord Wharton's jelly tissue and the matched culture-expanded MSCs from three donors to reveal cellular and molecular diversity in human umbilical cord tissue and corresponding mesenchymal stem/stromal cell.