Smaller gene set of DFC was selected by a unique selection criterion.

(a) Procedure of DEG and DFC extraction from scRNA-seq data. (b–e) The determined POI is compared with all other cell clusters in the muscle tissue. Embedding the scRNA-seq data into two-dimensional space with UMAP. (b) The clusters determined by the Louvain algorithm. The 12th cluster corresponds to the cluster of muscle stem cells and their progenitors. (c) The 12th cluster is set as the POI, and the other clusters are assigned as the control group, “Others.” (d, e) Single-cell expression levels for Pax7 and Myod1. (f) Some of the DEGs are selected as DFC. Venn diagram indicating the overlap of DEGs and DFC. (g) Genes in DFC not selected by the DEGs’ criteria. Volcano plot of DEGs and (h) MA plot of DEGs.