Fig. 5: Differential expression analysis reveals genes guiding temporal cortex maturation.

a, Twenty-one cell types with significant DEGs, including 12 excitatory and five inhibitory neuron subtypes, both astrocyte subtypes, oligodendrocytes and microglia. b–g, Volcano plots showing log₂ fold change (x axis) and −log₁₀ adjusted P values (y axis) for all DESeq2-tested genes in Exc_L3-5_RORB_ESR1 (b), Exc_L2-3_LINC00507_FREM3 (c), Exc_L4-5_RORB_FOLH1B (d), Exc_L2_LAMP5_LTK (e), Astro_L1-6_FGFR3_SLC14A1 (f) and Oligo_L1-6_OPALIN (g). A Wald test statistic was determined for each gene. P values were adjusted for multiple testing using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Red dots indicate genes that were significantly upregulated in pediatric samples, whereas blue dots indicate genes that were significantly downregulated (adjusted P < 0.05 and abs(log₂ fold change) > 10%). Selected genes are labeled. Red labels indicate DEGs shared between neuronal cell types. Magenta labels indicate DEGs not shared between cell types that are discussed in the text. Gray dots indicate nonsignificant genes (adjusted P > 0.05 or abs(log₂ fold change) < 10%). h, Dot plot showing the scaled average normalized expression across samples for DEGs shared among Exc_L3-5_RORB_ESR1, Exc_L2-3_LINC00507_FREM3, Exc_L4-5_RORB_FOLH1B, Exc_L2_LAMP5_LTK, Exc_L3-4_RORB_CARM1P1 and Exc_L3-5_RORB_FILIP1L. i, Psupertime gene expression trajectories for selected DEGs in the indicated cell types. The x axis shows the calculated psupertime value for each cell, colored by sample of origin. The black lines are smoothened curves fit by geom_smooth in R package ggplot2. B, biological replicate.