Abstract
Currently, root canal therapy is the only clinical treatment available to treat damaged or necrotic dental pulp tissue arising from caries. This treatment results in the loss of tooth vitality. Somatic dental stem cell-based tissue engineering approaches can alleviate this problem by preserving tooth vitality. Dental stem cells are multipotent and under appropriate conditions could be used for dental pulp tissue engineering. Successful use of these cells in pulp repair requires a combination of growth factors and appropriate scaffolds to induce cell differentiation. In this study, we demonstrate the odontogenic differentiation of human dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) and the human periodontal ligament stem cells when cultured on a decellularized 3D extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold without the need for exogenous addition of growth factors. Subcutaneous implantation of the ECM scaffolds containing DPSCs showed the formation of dental pulp-like tissue with cells expressing dentin sialoprotein (DSP) and dentin phosphophoryn (DPP). Additionally, we also show that the ECM scaffold can be exploited as a tool to study the extracellular function of multifunctional proteins. These promising results demonstrate the feasibility of developing these biomimetic scaffolds for treatment of dental caries.
Highlights
Dental caries is one of the most prevalent dental disease and a chronic disease in children aged 5–17.1 According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report from 2003, approximately 90% of the world’s population has experienced dental caries
We have focused on dental pulp tissue engineering using somatic dental stem cells
The extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold stained positive for growth factors such as bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2), transforming growth factor b (TGFb), VEGF, and PEDF (Fig. 1E–H), metalloproteases such as MMP2 and MMP9 (Fig. 1I, J), phosphorylated proteins (Fig. 1K, L), noncollagenous proteins such as DMP1, thrombospondin (Fig. 1M, N), and pulp-specific noncollagenous proteins dentin sialoprotein (DSP) and dentin phosphophoryn (DPP) (Fig. 1O, P)
Summary
Dental caries is one of the most prevalent dental disease and a chronic disease in children aged 5–17.1 According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report from 2003, approximately 90% of the world’s population has experienced dental caries. 24 million root canals are performed annually in the United States alone This therapy involves the complete removal of the infected pulp followed by disinfection and filling up of the chamber with a trioxide component such as mineral trioxide culminating in capping up with a crown. The pulp tissue offers vitality, sensitivity, and regenerative ability to the tooth All of these properties are lost as a result of root canal therapy, which in many cases leads to secondary infections. As tooth sensitivity is lost, the secondary infections go unnoticed, until the infection spreads to the surrounding tissues This condition can, in some cases, lead to sepsis and other serious complications leading to a significant reduction in the quality of life of the patient
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