Fig. 2: scRNA-seq analysis of the wild-type coronal suture at E18.5.

a UMAP plot of cell clusters detected by unsupervised graph clustering of suture-specific populations (i.e., suture mesenchyme, osteoblasts) from two replicates at E18.5. b Average expression of the top five differentially expressed marker genes (boxed) ranked by FC (FDR % 0.01, lnFC R 0.1) for suture-specific populations. Genes selected for smFISH in c are colored according to their population membership. For CS8-6, Cxcl12, which is within the top ten markers of this population, was used for its known expression in dura mater¹³. c Localization of populations by smFISH. Each pseudo-colored panel shows an individual section hybridized with probes for the indicated genes. The schematic summarizes the spatial distribution of populations, color-coded as in smFISH. Dashed outlines indicate frontal (f) and parietal (p) bones; white horizontal lines indicate osteoid. Sections are in the transverse plane. smFISH was performed on three independent samples with similar results. Scale bar, 50 μm. d Significant GO BP categories of population-specific expression signatures. Gene Ontology enrichment was performed with ranked query and multiple testing analytical correction (p ≤ 0.05, right of dashed line).