The peripheral nervous system responds to a wide variety of sensory stimuli, a process that requires great neuronal diversity. These diverse neurons are closely associated with glial cells originating from the neural crest. However, the molecular nature and diversity among peripheral glia are not understood. Here, we used single-cell RNA sequencing to profile developing and mature glia from somatosensory dorsal root ganglia and auditory spiral ganglia. We found that glial precursors (GPs) in these two systems differ in their transcriptional profiles. Despite their unique features, somatosensory and auditory GPs undergo convergent differentiation to generate molecularly uniform myelinating and non-myelinating Schwann cells. By contrast, somatosensory and auditory satellite glial cells retain system-specific features. Lastly, we identified a glial signature gene set, providing new insights into commonalities among glia across the nervous system. This survey of gene expression in peripheral glia constitutes a resource for understanding functions of glia across different sensory modalities.

周围神经系统对各种各样的感觉刺激作出反应，这一过程需要大量的神经元多样性。这些不同的神经元与源自神经嵴的神经胶质细胞密切相关。然而，外周神经胶质细胞的分子性质和多样性尚不清楚。在这里，我们使用单细胞 RNA 测序来分析体感背根神经节和听觉螺旋神经节的发育和成熟神经胶质细胞。我们发现这两个系统中的神经胶质前体 (GPs) 的转录谱不同。尽管它们具有独特的特征，但体感和听觉 GPs 经历了趋同分化以产生分子均匀的有髓鞘和非髓鞘雪旺细胞。相比之下，体感和听觉卫星神经胶质细胞保留了系统特定的特征。最后，我们确定了一个神经胶质特征基因集，为整个神经系统的神经胶质细胞的共性提供了新的见解。这项对外周神经胶质细胞基因表达的调查构成了了解不同感觉方式的神经胶质细胞功能的资源。