The main duct of von Ebner's glands is a source of Sox10 taste bud progenitors and susceptible to pathogen infections.

We have recently demonstrated that -expressing ( ) cells give rise to mainly type-III neuronal taste bud cells that are responsible for sour and salt taste. The two tissue compartments containing cells in the surrounding of taste buds include the connective tissue core of taste papillae and von Ebner's glands (vEGs) that are connected to the trench of circumvallate and foliate papillae. In this study, we used inducible Cre mouse models to map the cell lineages of connective tissue (including stromal and Schwann cells) and vEGs and performed single cell RNA-sequencing of the epithelium of mouse circumvallate/vEG complex. lineage mapping showed that the distribution of traced cells in circumvallate taste buds was closely linked with that in the vEGs, but not in the connective tissue. , but not the known stem cells marker , expression was enriched in the cell clusters of main ducts of vEGs that contained abundant proliferating cells, while expression was enriched in type-III taste bud cells and excretory ductal cells. Moreover, multiple genes encoding pathogen receptors are enriched in the vEG main ducts. Our data indicate that the main duct of vEGs is a source of taste bud progenitors and susceptible to pathogen infections.