Mesenchymal progenitor cells in adult human dental pulp and their ability to form bone when transplanted into immunocompromised mice

Abstract

The technique of tissue engineering is developing for the restoration of lost tissues. This new technique requires cells that fabricate tissue. Mesenchymal stem cells in bone marrow have been used as the cell source for this technique; however, dental pulp cells have recently been shown to possess stem-cell-like properties. We earlier demonstrated that dental pulp cells proliferate and produce an extracellular matrix that subsequently becomes mineralized in vitro. We now report that such dental pulp cells (first to eighth passage) produced bone instead of dentin when those cells were implanted into subcutaneous sites in immunocompromised mice with HA/TCP powder as their carrier. This evidence shows that dental pulp cells are the common progenitors of odontoblasts and osteoblasts, or dental pulp cells are mesenchymal stem cells themselves. It is expected that dental pulp cells can be a useful candidate cell source for tissue engineering, and contain the potential of new therapeutic approaches for the restoration of damaged or diseased tissue.

In Vitro Characterization of Stem Cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous Teeth (SHED)

“…On culturing the isolated pulp cells, SHED reached confluency within 14 days, forming an adherent monolayer of visible fibroblast-like colonies in the culture flask, with numerous dividing stem cells [7,23,24]. We used the second passage cultures because as the cultures were passaged, morphological homogeneity was gradually achieved in that flat cells bearing a large nucleoli-rich nucleus predominated, this in accordance with a study by Gronthos et al, 2000 [7].…”

Dental Pulp of the Third Molar: A New Source of Pluripotent-like Stem Cells

“…The third molars are the most common source of dental stem cells, because wisdom tooth extraction is widely performed and the teeth are usually considered to be medical waste (Otaki et al, 2007;Yang et al, 2007). Because the third molar is the last tooth to develop in humans, it is normally in an early stage of development and is capable of yielding an optimum quantity of dental pulp tissue for the isolation of DPSCs (Gandia et al, 2008;Laino et al, 2006;Leeb et al, 2010;Morsczeck et al, 2009;Smith et al, 2009;Atari et al, 2011;Zhang et al, 2006a).…”

The Scope of Stem Cells in Periodontal Regeneration

“…Further DePDLSC cell sheets when combined with dentin blocks resulted in the formation of PDL and cementum like tissue on the dentin block however PePDLSCs resulted in formation of no cementum. Numerous other studies carried out in periodontal defect models in animals have reported positive results with application of PDLSC [61][62][63][64].…”