Histological Study and Localization of Stem/ Progenitor Cells in Human Dental Follicle

Abstract

The human dental follicle (hDF) is an ectomesenchymal tissue that surrounds the developing tooth germ and has an embryonic neural crest origin (1). It contains resident stem/ progenitor cells, such as osteoblast/ cementoblast precursor cells, which are commonly referred to as dental follicle stem cells (DFSCs) (1-3). We have previously reported that human dental follicle cells (hDFCs) had the capacity to differentiate to osteoblastic (1) , adipogenic (2) , and neurogenic lineages (4) and that hDFCs had gene expression profiles during osteogenic differentiation (5). hD-FCs can be easily harvested from patients who undergo extraction of an impacted 3rd molar tooth or supernumerary tooth and are usually discarded after extraction. Therefore, hDFCs could be a source for regenerative medicine and can be collected without additional invasive methods. The use of hDFCs for regenerative medicine has great potential. Recently, numerous studies have published the potential of stem/ progenitor cells for multilineage differentiation from dental follicles in vitro (1-5