Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals different signatures of mesenchymal stromal cell pluripotent-like and multipotent populations

Somatic stem cells are advantageous research targets for understanding the properties required to maintain stemness. Human bone marrow-mesenchymal stromal cells (BM-MSCs) were separated into pluripotent-like SSEA-3(+) Muse cells (Muse-MSCs) and multipotent SSEA-3(−) MSCs (MSCs) and were subjected to single-cell RNA sequencing analysis. Compared with MSCs, Muse-MSCs exhibited higher expression levels of the p53 repressor MDM2; signal acceptance-related genes EGF, VEGF, PDGF, WNT, TGFB, INHB, and CSF; ribosomal protein; and glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation. Conversely, MSCs had higher expression levels of FGF and ANGPT; Rho family and caveola-related genes; amino acid and cofactor metabolism; MHC class I/II, and lysosomal enzyme genes than Muse-MSCs. Unsupervised clustering further divided Muse-MSCs into two clusters stratified by the expression of cell cycle-related genes, and MSCs into three clusters stratified by the expression of cell cycle-, cytoskeleton-, and extracellular matrix-related genes. This study evaluating the differentiation ability of BM-MSC subpopulations provides intriguing insights for understanding stemness.