Dental Stem Cells for Bone Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Bone defects and atrophy lead to several clinical problems. Autogenous bone grafts and guided bone regeneration are commonly used to repair bone defects. To promote good outcomes and avoid invasiveness, tissue engineering has been developed as an alternative technique and potential substitute for present therapies. Generally, bone tissue engineering refers to the implantation of an artificial construct in order to regenerate bone tissue. Current artificial structures mainly contain three components: stem cells having differentiation capacity into osteoblasts, scaffold framework, and growth factors regulating various properties of the stem cells. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs), which have been widely investigated, are considered the gold standard for bone tissue engineering. In recent years, investigators have paid more and more attention to dental stem cells (DSCs), mainly dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs), stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHEDs), periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSCs), stem cells from apical papilla (SCAPs), and dental follicle stem cells (DFSCs). PDLSCs, DFSCs, and SCAPs have osteogenic differentiation potentials based on in vitro studies, and PDLSCs and DFSCs have been confirmed for their osteogenic potentials in in vivo animal studies. In addition, DPSC- and SHED-based bone regeneration strategies have significantly increased bone formation in animal studies. Thus, these DSCs have become candidate sources of seed cells for bone regeneration but further progress is still needed before they can be applied clinically.