Figure 1.

Identification of human NPC atlas and transcriptional changes correlated with IVDD severity. A) Graphical representation of the experimental workflow. B) UMAP visualization of human NP cells identified six different clusters after unsupervised clustering. Each dot corresponds to one single cell colored according to cell cluster. C) Heatmap revealing the scaled expression of differentially expressed genes for each cluster. D) Dot plots showing the grade distribution in each NP cell subsets. E) RT‐qPCR for the representative genes of NPC atlas in different degenerative grades discs (n = 3 with mean ± SD shown). F) Representative immunohistochemistry assay of indicated genes in NP tissues. G) Heatmap showing grade‐related transcription factors. H) Enriched signal pathways related with degeneration grades.