Publications by authors named "Zaiqi Xie"
Article Synopsis
- The periosteum houses skeletal stem/progenitor cells (P-SSCs) crucial for bone healing, but their exact identity and specific markers are not fully understood.
- Researchers discovered that the membrane protein Itm2a is enriched in P-SSCs, which show ability to self-renew and differentiate into various cell types necessary for bone repair.
- Itm2a+ P-SSCs, found primarily in the outer layer of the periosteum, play a significant role in fracture healing, and the study suggests that targeting Itm2a could lead to advancements in treatments for skeletal conditions.
Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) results from the dysfunction of nucleus pulposus (NP) cells and the exhaustion of NP progenitors (ProNPs). The cellular applications of NP cells during IDD are currently limited due to the lack of in vivo studies showing whether NP cells are heterogeneous and contain ProNPs throughout postnatal stages. In this study, single-cell RNA sequencing of purified NP cells is used to map four molecularly defined populations and urotensin II receptor (UTS2R)-expressing postnatal ProNPs is identified, which are markedly exhausted during IDD, in mouse and human specimens.
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