Transcriptomic single-cell analysis of murine neonatal growth plate with conditional G6PDH deletion

The growth plate controls bone lengthening and provides a template for bone formation. However, chondrocytes function in an avascular milieu and the supply of glucose is important to support the metabolic needs of this highly anabolic structure. Besides being an energetic source, we questioned whether glucose is also important for biosynthesis and redox homeostasis. We focused on the Pentose Phosphate Pathway, which provides intermediates for nucleotide synthesis and generates reducing power, necessary for biosynthesis and scavenging of reactive oxygen species. We therefore performed scRNA-seq analysis of chondrocytes isolated from wild-type and G6PDH-null neonatal murine growth plates (postnatal day 3). Chondrocyte-specific G6PDH-null mice were obtained by crossing G6pdh-floxed mice (provided by P. Carmeliet) with transgenic mice expressing Cre recombinase under the control of the collagen type II promotor (Ovchinnikov, DA. et al., 2000). Wild-type littermates were used as control.