Epha1 is a cell-surface marker for the neuromesodermal competent population

The vertebrate body is built during embryonic development by the sequential addition of new tissue as the embryo grows at its caudal end. During this process, progenitor cells within the neuromesodermal competent (NMC) region generate the postcranial neural tube and paraxial mesoderm. Here, we have applied a genetic strategy to recover the NMC cell population from mouse embryonic tissues and have searched their transcriptome for cell-surface markers that would give access to these cells without previous genetic modifications. We found that Epha1 expression is restricted to the axial progenitor-containing areas of the mouse embryo. Epha1-positive cells isolated from the mouse tailbud generate neural and mesodermal derivatives when cultured in vitro. This observation, together with their enrichment in the Sox2+/Tbxt+ molecular phenotype, indicates a direct association between Epha1 and the NMC population. Additional analyses suggest that tailbud cells expressing low Epha1 levels might also contain notochord progenitors, and that high Epha1 expression might be associated with progenitors entering paraxial mesoderm differentiation. Epha1 could thus be a valuable cell-surface marker for labeling and recovering physiologically active axial progenitors from embryonic tissues.