Therapeutic applications of dental pulp stem cells in regenerating dental,periodontal and oral-related structures

Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) have emerged as a promising tool with greatpotential for use in tissue regeneration and engineering. Some of the mainadvantages of these cells are their multifaceted differentiation capacity, along withtheir high proliferation rate, a relative simplicity of extraction and culture thatenables obtaining patient-specific cell lines for their use in autologous celltherapy. PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar databases were searched forrelevant articles related to the use of DPSCs in regeneration of dentin-pulpcomplex (DPC), periodontal tissues, salivary gland and craniomaxillofacial bonedefects. Few studies were found regarding the use of DPSCs for regeneration ofDPC. Scaffold-based combined with DPSCs isolated from healthy pulps was thestrategy used for DPC regeneration. Studies involved subcutaneous implantationof scaffolds loaded with DPSCs pretreated with odontogenic media, or performedon human tooth root model as a root slice. Most of the studies were related toperiodontal tissue regeneration which mainly utilized DPSCs/secretome. Forperiodontal tissues, DPSCs or their secretome were isolated from healthy orinflamed pulps and they were used either for preclinical or clinical studies.Regarding salivary gland regeneration, the submandibular gland was the onlymodel used for the preclinical studies and DPSCs or their secretome were isolatedonly from healthy pulps and they were used in preclinical studies. Likewise,DPSCs have been studied for craniomaxillofacial bone defects in the form ofmandibular, calvarial and craniofacial bone defects where DPSCs were isolatedonly from healthy pulps for preclinical and clinical studies. From the previousresults, we can conclude that DPSCs is promising candidate for dental and oraltissue regeneration.

Dental pulp stem cells: Novel cell-based and cell-free therapy for peripheral nerve repair

The regeneration of peripheral nerves comprises complicated steps involving a set of cellular and molecular events in distal nerve stumps with axonal sprouting and remyelination. Stem cell isolation and expansion for peripheral nerve repair(PNR) can be achieved using a wide diversity of prenatal and adult tissues, such as bone marrow or brain tissues. The ability to obtain stem cells for cell-based therapy(CBT) is limited due to donor site morbidity and the invasive nature of the harvesting process. Dental pulp stem cells(DPSCs) can be relatively and simply isolated from the dental pulps of permanent teeth, extracted for surgical or orthodontic reasons. DPSCs are of neural crest origin with an outstanding ability to differentiate into multiple cell lineages. They have better potential to differentiate into neural and glial cells than other stem cell sources through the expression and secretion of certain markers and a range of neurotropic factors;thus, they should be considered a good choice for PNR using CBT. In addition,these cells have paracrine effects through the secretion of neurotrophic growth factors and extracellular vesicles, which can enhance axonal growth and remyelination by decreasing the number of dying cells and activating local inhabitant stem cell populations, thereby revitalizing dormant or blocked cells,modulating the immune system and regulating inflammatory responses. The use of DPSC-derived secretomes holds great promise for controllable and manageable therapy for peripheral nerve injury. In this review, up-to-date information about the neurotrophic and neurogenic properties of DPSCs and their secretomes is provided.