Fig. 7. Investigation of potential germline stem cells in the adult human ovarian cortex.

Data sets of unsorted and sorted ovarian cortex cells were used individually for integration with scRNA-seq data set of human fetal tissue cells²². a UMAP plot showing sample origin of fetal (black) and adult cells (C-sec data, grey). b UMAP showing nine clusters representing different cell types annotated based on differential gene expression analysis. The same clusters as in adult tissue were found, as well as three new ones: mitotic fetal germ cells, retinoic acid responsive FGCs, and meiotic FGCs. c Table listing cell numbers from adult and fetal data sets per annotated cluster. One cell of C-sec sample, one cell of DDX4 Ab+ sample and two cells of DDX4 Ab− sample clustered with mitotic FGCs of the fetal sample (in red). These four cells were manually clustered together and studied further with violin plots. d Violin plots displaying expression scores of known pluripotency, germline and oocyte markers in the different FGC clusters in addition to adult oocyte cluster and the four adult ovarian cells clustering with mitotic FGCs. C-sec Cesarean section patient, FGCs fetal germ cells, GRP gender reassignemnt patient, NA non-annotated, UMAP uniform manifold approximation and projection.