{"doi":"10.1002/sctm.20-0424","title":"Type II Collagen-Positive Embryonic Progenitors are the Major Contributors to Spine and Intervertebral Disc Development and Repair","abstract":"Basic mechanism of spine development is poorly understood. Type II collagen positive (Col2+) cells have been reported to encompass early mesenchymal progenitors that continue to become chondrocytes, osteoblasts, stromal cells, and adipocytes in long bone. However, the function of Col2+ cells in spine and intervertebral disc (IVD) development is largely unknown. To further elucidate the function of Col2+ progenitors in spine, we generated the mice with ablation of Col2+ cells either at embryonic or at postnatal stage. Embryonic ablation of Col2+ progenitors caused the mouse die at newborn with the absence of all spine and IVD. Moreover, postnatal deletion Col2+ cells in spine resulted in a shorter growth plate and endplate cartilage, defected inner annulus fibrosus, a less compact and markedly decreased gel-like matrix in the nucleus pulposus and disorganized cell alignment in each compartment of IVD. Genetic lineage tracing IVD cell populations by using inducible Col2-creERT;tdTomato reporter mice and non-inducible Col2-cre;tdTomato reporter mice revealed that the numbers and differentiation ability of Col2+ progenitors decreased with age. Moreover, immunofluorescence staining showed type II collagen expression changed from extracellular matrix to cytoplasm in nucleus pulposus between 6 month and 1-year-old mice. Finally, fate-mapping studies revealed that Col2+ progenitors are essential for IVD repair in IVD injured model. In summary, embryonic Col2+ cells are the major source of spine development and Col2+ progenitors are the important contributors for IVD repair and regeneration.","journal":"Stem Cells Translational Medicine","year":2021,"id":174440,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":23,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.958,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":316223,"name":"Shuting Yang","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":232259,"name":"Ling Qin","orcid":"0000-0002-2582-0078","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":245401,"name":"Shuying Yang","orcid":"0000-0002-7126-6901","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":482653,"name":"Xinhua Li","orcid":"0000-0002-4387-3229","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":46,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:06.584146Z","pmid":"34032373","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}