Abstract
The fields of regenerative medicine and stem cell-based tissue engineering have the potential of treating numerous tissue and organ defects. The use of adult stem cells is of particular interest when it comes to dynamic applications in translational medicine. Recently, dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) have been traced in third molars of adult humans. DPSCs have been isolated and characterized by several groups. DPSCs have promising characteristics including self-renewal capacity, rapid proliferation, colony formation, multi-lineage differentiation, and pluripotent gene expression profile. Nevertheless, genotypic, and phenotypic heterogeneities have been reported for DPSCs subpopulations which may influence their therapeutic potentials. The underlying causes of DPSCs’ heterogeneity remain poorly understood; however, their heterogeneity emerges as a consequence of an interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic cellular factors. The main objective of the manuscript is to review the current literature related to the human DPSCs derived from the third molar, with a focus on their physiological properties, isolation procedures, culture conditions, self-renewal, proliferation, lineage differentiation capacities and their prospective advances use in pre-clinical and clinical applications.
Highlights
Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) are a unique population of cells embedded within the pulp cavity of the impacted third molars
Dental pulp is a promising source of DPSCs, which are multipotent stem cells with potentials of self-renewal, multilineage differentiation, and immunomodulatory functions
These stem cells offer the advantage of more comprehensive clinical applications as compared to MSCs derived from other sources like the peripheral blood, adipose tissue, umbilical cord, and bone marrow
Summary
Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) are a unique population of cells embedded within the pulp cavity of the impacted third molars. In vitro studies have shown that dental stem cells generate clonogenic cell clusters, possess high proliferation rates and have the potential of multi-lineage differentiation into a wide spectrum of cell types from the three germ layers or, at least in part, express their specific markers under the appropriate culture conditions (Figure 1C). Despite being similar at a coarse level, the transcriptomic and proteomic profiles of oral stem cells reveal several molecular differences including differential expression of surface marker, structural proteins, growth hormones, and metabolites; indicating prospective developmental divergence (Hosmani et al, 2020; Krivanek et al, 2020), and suggest that dental stem cells might be the optimal choice for tissue self-repair and regeneration. DPSCs can be enriched by using different isolation procedures and cell culture conditions Their surface marker expression may vary depending on the serum concentrations and/or the addition of growth factors to the basal culture media. Krueppel-like factor 4 MYC proto-oncogene, BHLH transcription facto Transcription factor SOX-2
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