Abstract
Saliva plays a major role in maintaining oral health. Patients afflicted with a decrease in saliva secretion (symptomatically, xerostomia) exhibit difficulty in chewing and swallowing foods, tooth decay, periodontal disease, and microbial infections. Despite recent improvements in treating xerostomia (e.g., saliva stimulants, saliva substitutes, and gene therapy), there is a need of more scientific advancements that can be clinically applied toward restoration of compromised salivary gland function. Here we provide a summary of the current salivary cell models that have been used to advance restorative treatments via development of an artificial salivary gland. These models represent initial steps toward clinical and translational research, to facilitate creation of clinically safe salivary glands. Further studies in salivary cell lines and primary cells are necessary to improve survival rates, cell differentiation, and secretory function. Additionally, the characterization of salivary progenitor and stem cell markers are necessary. Although these models are not fully characterized, their improvement may lead to the construction of an artificial salivary gland that is in high demand for improving the quality of life of many patients suffering from salivary secretory dysfunction.
Highlights
Hyposalivation is a significant clinical concern, as decreased saliva production leads to dental caries, periodontitis, microbial infections, and difficulties with
Major causes of hyposalivation include (i) Sjogren’s Syndrome (SS), an autoimmune disease affecting approximately 1% of the population (Pillemer et al, 2001); (ii) c-irradiation therapy administered to approximately 5% of the patients with head and neck cancer diagnosed each year in the United States (Jensen et al, 2010); (iii) side effects of medications used by a large portion of the population; and (iv) ectodermal dysplasias, a group of developmental disorders mainly affecting ectodermal tissues and organs (Pinheiro and Freire-Maia, 1994; Nordgarden et al, 2003; Clauss et al, 2008)
An in vivo gene therapy strategy involving viral vectormediated transfer of the aquaporin-1 cDNA to irradiation-damaged salivary glands has been successfully tested in two pre-clinical models, as well as demonstrated its safety in a large toxicology and biodistribution study (Baum et al, 2009)
Summary
Hyposalivation is a significant clinical concern, as decreased saliva production leads to dental caries, periodontitis, microbial infections, and difficulties with. SMIE cells have been shown to to AQP5 volume (Aure et al, 2010) These studies indicate secrete luciferase, a naturally non-secreted protein, when SMG-C10 as potential candidates for salivary cell volume transfected with a pGL3-EGFSP construct (Aframian regulation, which is an important feature to develop an et al, 2007). Par-C10 form monolayers of cuboidal cells with thick extracellular matrices at their base while Par-C5 regulate transepithelial transport, are sensitive to changes in both [Ca2+]i and [cAMP]i concentrations (Demeter et al, 2009) These studies demonstrate Parform layers of plump cells containing numerous inter- C10 as an excellent model to characterize secretion, cellular lumen-like invaginations on their medial sur- which is essential for the construction of an artificial faces (Quissell et al, 1998). (GFR) Matrigel, an interesting study on the Understanding the mechanisms involved in cytokine-
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