Abstract
Tissue engineering is an emerging discipline that combines engineering and life sciences. It can construct functional biological structures in vivo or in vitro to replace native tissues or organs and minimize serious shortages of donor organs during tissue and organ reconstruction or transplantation. Organ transplantation has achieved success by using the tissue-engineered heart, liver, kidney, and other artificial organs, and the emergence of tissue-engineered bone also provides a new approach for the healing of human bone defects. In recent years, tissue engineering technology has gradually become an important technical method for dentistry research, and its application in stomatology-related research has also obtained impressive achievements. The purpose of this review is to summarize the research advances of tissue engineering and its application in stomatology. These aspects include tooth, periodontal, dental implant, cleft palate, oral and maxillofacial skin or mucosa, and oral and maxillofacial bone tissue engineering. In addition, this article also summarizes the commonly used cells, scaffolds, and growth factors in stomatology and discusses the limitations of tissue engineering in stomatology from the perspective of cells, scaffolds, and clinical applications.
Highlights
Some researchers transplanted cell sheets supported by electrospun polycaprolactone (CaP-PCL) scaffolds, and denuded root and alveolar bone formation occurred at the defect site after 4 weeks, confirming that the combination of PCL and CaP-PCL scaffolds can promote periodontal regeneration (Dan et al, 2014). All these results provide important insights into advancements in periodontal tissue engineering, and it is believed that with the development of periodontal tissue engineering, complete realization of periodontal regeneration will be full of infinite possibilities
The results showed that umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (UCMSCs) can promote the formation of new bone in the bone defect area around implants; UCMSCs can be used as excellent cells in the regeneration of bone defects after implantation (Hao et al, 2014)
On the other hand, concerning the problem of insufficient soft tissue, Simion et al used a resorbable collagen matrix as a scaffold to carry recombinant human platelet–derived growth factor BB, and the results indicated that the soft tissue volume around implants increased moderately when applying a collagen matrix infused with rhPDGF-BB (Simion et al, 2012)
Summary
The basic principle of tissue engineering is to collect functionally related cells and plant them on a natural or synthetic scaffold with a certain spatial structure and induce cell proliferation through the influence of growth factors, thereby regenerating tissues or organs (Figure 2) (Han et al, 2014; Dzobo et al, 2018; Dey et al, 2020). Scaffolds can provide sustained-release growth factors, which are soluble polypeptides that bind to cell membrane receptors (Pilipchuk et al, 2015). Some of these growth factors can promote epithelial regeneration, such as epidermal growth factor (EGF) (Zhao et al, 2010), and some induce bone formation such as bone morphogenetic protein (BMP), transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). Various cells extracted from the oral cavity are seeded on scaffolds adsorbed with growth factors, and the required tissues or organs can be obtained after appropriate in vitro culture and implanted in vivo
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