Dental pluripotent cells - a promise for tissue regeneration

Abstract

Pluripotent cell biology has become an important field for the understanding of tissue regeneration and implementation of regenerative medicine. The objective of this review is to highlight the biology, sources and potential applications of pluripotent cells with emphasis on a dentist’s role in using pluripotent cells from teeth. A literature review was performed in PubMed Central,Google scholar and Cochrane library using Mesh Terms– ‘Dental stem cells’, ‘Periodontal’ and ‘Pulpal’. With this combination total of 101 abstracts appeared. Out of these 39 titles/abstracts were related to the research question. Further search criteria’s were applied to the articles out of which 11 articles which fulfilled the criteria’s were selected for the review. 04 articles which was hand searched were also included. It was found that human pluripotent cells have been isolated from the dental pulp, exfoliated deciduous teeth, the periodontal ligament, the dental follicle, differentiate into many dental components and may provide therapeutic benefits. They are capable of replicating themselves and can be readily recovered at the time of a planned dental procedure. Furthermore, our data clearly show that these cells have high potential to serve as resources not for medical therapies and tissue engineering, but also for dental or bone reconstruction.