Characterisation of the molecular signature of an 8 week-old human embryonic notochord

During embryonic development, the notochord is the precursor to the nucleus pulposus (NP) in the intervertebral disc (IVD), where the notochord cells differentiate to become notochordal-like cells in the NP, and are considered as potential progenitor cells to support the function of the NP. With aging and degeneration, there is a loss of these cells from the NP which ultimately affects IVD function. The characterisation of the molecular signature of the 8 week-old (gestational age) human embryonic notochord is a valuable resource to better understand the development from the notochord to the NP progenitors and as a benchmark for comparison to other datasets. Embyronic notochord was isolated from an 8 week old gestational age human fetus and enzymatically digested to single cells. Cells were prepared for single cell RNA-seq (10X genomics) as per manufacturer’s protocol.