Fig. 1: scRNA-seq identifies schistosome stem cell subpopulations and GSC transcriptional signatures.

UMAP projections showing scRNA-seq data of a all cells and b ago2-1⁺ stem cells (boxed in a) only. The manifolds are reconstructed by SAM²⁵. In a, ago2-1 expression is overlaid. In b, cells are color-coded by Leiden clusters and annotated based on marker gene expression. c Heatmap showing the expression of genes enriched in specific stem cell populations, with the mean expression of each gene shifted to 0. Top: the populations are grouped through hierarchical clustering in the PC space, with the height of the branches representing correlation distance between populations. Left: annotated transcription factors (GO: 0003677 DNA binding and GO: 0003700 DNA-binding transcription factor activity) are indicated by black lines. Yellow boxes: genes that lack expression in the presumptive multipotent group compared to the progenitor group. Green box: genes enriched in nanos-1⁺ population. For the sake of visualization, we only show the top 50 markers per cluster. The complete list of markers is provided in Supplementary Data 1. d UMAP projections showing the expression of nanos-1 in stem cells (left) and the expression of eled (a previously characterized GSC marker⁵), oc-1, nr, and boule in nanos-1⁺ cells (right). nr and boule expression separate nanos-1⁺ cells into S1 stem cells and GSCs.