Population and Individual Stem Cell Dynamics in the Olfactory Epithelium

The study investigated the dynamics of horizontal basal cell (HBC) self-renewal and differentiation in the olfactory epithelium (OE) using lineage tracing and single-cell RNA sequencing. It was found that symmetric HBC divisions were balanced by population asymmetry, independent of spindle orientation and cell polarity. At steady-state, HBCs with a conditional knockout of the transcription factor p63 differentiated directly into sustentacular cells and gave rise to neural progenitors. During regeneration, all HBCs were activated and entered the cell cycle before renewing or differentiating. The sustentacular lineage developed before the neuronal lineage with fewer transcriptional changes. These findings provided new insights into HBC dynamics and offered a methodological model for studying adult stem cells in other tissues.