Sequencing-based study of neural induction of human dental pulp stem cells

This study aimed to evaluate the cellular components and differentiation pathways of neural lineage cells obtained via neural induction of human DPSCs. Human DPSCs were induced to neural cells in monolayer culture. The neural lineage cells were subjected to single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to classify cell populations based on gene expression profiles and elucidate their differentiation pathways. The scRNA-seq and cell type annotations evidenced the presence of neural progenitor cells, astrocytes, neurons, and a small number of non-neural lineage cells. Moreover, trajectory and pseudotime analyses demonstrated that the neural progenitor cells initially engendered neurons, which subsequently differentiated into astrocytes. This result indicates that the aforementioned neural induction strategy generated neural stem/progenitor cells from DPSCs, which might differentiate and proliferate to constitute neural lineage cells. Therefore, neural induction of DPSCs may present an alternative approach to pluripotent stem cell-based therapeutic interventions for nervous system disorder. Overall design: Human DPSCs were induced to neural lineage cells in monolayer culture, and we evaluated the cellular components and differentiation pathways of neural lineage cells obtained via neural induction of human DPSCs.