Identity and Nature of Neural Stem Cells in the Adult Human Subventricular Zone

The existence of neural stem cells (NSCs) in adult human brain neurogenic regions remains unresolved. To address this, we created a cell atlas of the adult human subventricular zone (SVZ) derived from fresh neurosurgical samples using single-cell transcriptomics. We discovered 2 adult radial glia (RG)-like populations, aRG1 and aRG2. aRG1 shared features with fetal early RG (eRG) and aRG2 were transcriptomically similar to fetal outer RG (oRG). We also captured early neuronal and oligodendrocytic NSC states. We found that the biological programs driven by their transcriptomes support their roles as early-lineage NSCs. Finally, we show that these NSCs have the potential to transition between states and along lineage trajectories. These data reveal that multipotent NSCs reside in the adult human SVZ. SVZ samples were acquired from 15 patients undergoing brain tumor surgery. Their ages ranged from 38 to 72 years (Fig. 1A, fig. S1). SVZ regions that were normal on MRI and were to be removed during the course of surgery were sampled *************************************************************** Raw data files not provided as there are privacy concerns regarding sequencing file (BAM, FASTQ) ***************************************************************