Elyas Mohammadi

In the Neural Patterning (NP) process, morphogen gradients in the dorsal and ventral area of the developing Central Nervous System (dCNS), specify homogeneous neural stem cells into heterogeneous, domain-specific neural progenitor cells1 (NPCs)(Fig1A). While low-throughput targeted methods, e.g., in-situ sequencing (ISS) and immunolabeling, can identify/validate the location and signatures of domains2, they are confined to a predefined set of genes. High-throughput methods without spatial data, such as single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq)2, present challenges as gene expression variations in the dCNS mainly relate to changes in cell fate and migration rather than defining unique domains. Integrating a high-throughput spatial approach with a method to identify variable genes with symmetric distribution can offer valuable insights into NP. Study of NP leads to gaining insights into 1) cell origin of different neurons and glia during development

2) mechanism of the fate choice of NPCs

3) mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders

4) improved stem cell therapy4. Our main aim is to identify novel domain-specific markers and potential subdomains to reveal the origin of different neurons and glia in the developing human spinal cord (dSC).