Fig. 4

Single-cell profiling identifies significant changes in the NP cell profile of degraded IVDs. A The processing and analysis workflow of rat IVD NP cells for ScRNA-seq. B UMAP plot of total rat IVD NP cells. C 14 cell types were identified based on the different transcriptomes of rat IVD NP cells. D UMAP plot of NP cells from 10 and 20M-old rats. E-F UMAP (E) and violin map (F) of Krt7, Krt8 and Stmn2 expression in the cluster 13 NP cells. G The proportion of 14 cell clusters in 10 and 20M-old rat NP tissues