Sequencing Single Cells Reveals Sequential Stem Cell States

Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying activation of quiescent neural stem cells (NSCs) is complicated by heterogeneity in coexisting NSC pools. Two papers in this issue of Cell Stem Cell (Llorens-Bobadilla et al., 2015; Shin et al., 2015) report sequencing of single NSCs, providing insights into the transition from quiescence to activation and highlighting common themes in NSCs from distinct brain regions.