Abstract
Adult neurogenesis may help overcome Alzheimer’s disease; however, knowledge concerning neurogenic markers in the human brain remains limited. Herein, we compared the hippocampal single-nucleus transcriptome to other cortical regions to verify the neurogenic markers exclusive to the dentate gyrus. We analyzed 26,189 of the 40,691 nuclei initially extracted from four human brains within 16 hours of death. Analyses were performed after clustering and annotation to elucidate differential expression, gene ontology, pseudo-time trajectory, and intercellular communication. Immature markers, including doublecortin (DCX), CALB2, NES, SOX2, PAX6, DPYSL3, and TUBB3, were widely expressed in both the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, with higher expression levels in the prefrontal cortex. DCX appears to not only play a role in neurogenesis but also in the neuroprotective or restorative pathways. This study revealed that neurogenic markers are not definitive indicators of adult neurogenesis as their cellular makeup is more nuanced than previously thought.