Single cell RNA-sequencing of induced Neural Border Stem Cells

We describe a so far uncharacterised, embryonic and self-renewing Neural Border Stem Cell (NBSC) population with capacity to differentiate into central nervous and neural crest lineages. NBSCs can be obtained by neural transcription factor-mediated reprogramming (BRN2, SOX2, KLF4 and ZIC3) of human adult dermal fibroblasts and peripheral blood cells (induced Neural Border Stem Cells, iNBSCs) or by directed differentiation from human induced pluripotent stem cells. Moreover human (i)NBSCs share molecular and functional features with a novel endogenous NBSC population isolated from neural folds of E8.5 mouse embryos. Upon differentiation, iNBSCs give rise to either (1) radial glia-type stem cells, dopaminergic and serotonergic neurons, motoneurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes or (2) cells from the neural crest lineage. Here we provide single cell RNA-sequencing data of six iNBSC lines (310 cells total). iNBSCs were single-cell-sorted and RNA sequencing was performed following the Smart-seq2 protocol. This dataset further supports the notion that iNBSC cultures consist of a dominant stem cell fraction with molecular and functional neural border-like identity, which show signs of some spontaneous differentiation towards sensory neurons.