Embracing the heterogeneity of neural stem cells in the subventricular zone

Neural stem cells (NSCs) of the subventricular zone (SVZ) could be a potential source for brain repair. These are heterogeneous cells with distinct activation states. To identify NSCs in the SVZ, different markers are used, including Gfap, Nestin, and Sox2. A comparison of these different methods to assess if the NSC marker used is selective toward specific NSC states is currently lacking. Here, we integrated six previously published single-cell RNA sequencing datasets from the adult mouse SVZ, where different methods were used to identify NSCs. Our data show that the approach used to isolate NSCs favors certain cell states over others. Our analyses underscore the importance of enriching for the NSC population of interest to increase data granularity. We also observed that cells with lower gene expression can be assigned incorrectly to clusters. We provide a framework for choosing the most optimal approach to enrich for NSC states of interest.