Characterization of α-smooth muscle actin positive cells in mineralized human dental pulp cultures

Culture medium modulates the behaviour of human dental pulp-derived cells: Technical Note

“…Moreover, the presence of SMA+ cells in cultures with MEM was not surprising because SMA+ cells were recently reported in human pulp cells cultured in α-MEM (Gronthos et al, 2000) and in porcine dental pulp cells cultured in DMEM F12 medium (Brock et al, 2002). Interestingly, in our model of human dental pulp culture that contains cells at various stages of differentiation (Alliot-Licht et al, 2005), our results demonstrated that a calcium-rich and phosphate-poor medium (MEM) supports recruitment and/or proliferation of SMA+ cells in human dental pulp cultures. This data therefore appears in agreement with previous reports, which showed that MEM could be successfully employed in culture of cells expressing smooth muscle cell markers (pericytes or calcifying vascular cells).…”

“…Effects of culture media on pulp cells Although DSPP was described in bone and enamel (Qin et al, 2002), it remains one of the most widely used odontoblastic marker (D'Souza et al, 1997;Couble et al, 2000;Gronthos et al, 2000;Shi et al, 2001;Miura et al, 2003;Zhang et al, 2005). Interestingly, DSPP mRNA expression was observed in MEM culture whereas, like in our previous report (Alliot-Licht et al, 2005), the expression of DSPP was not detected when dental pulp cells were cultured in RPMI 1640. In light of these data, one can assume that MEM is able to promote odontoblastic differentiation of precursors present in human pulp cultures without an exogenous phosphate source or dexamethasone.…”

“…Interestingly, 85% of the isolated CD146 positive cells express a-smooth muscle actin (SMA) . The presence of SMA positive cells was previously described in porcine dental pulp cultures (Brock et al, 2002) and in dental human pulp cultures (Gronthos et al, 2000;Alliot-Licht et al, 2001;Alliot-Licht et al, 2005). While RPMI 1640 affects cell growth to a lesser extent than MEM, it has been successfully used for the culture of human pulp cells (Alliot-Licht et al, 2001).…”

“…These cells are usually cultured in Eagle's basal medium, MEM, α-MEM or D-MEM and the supplementation with β-glycerophosphate or dexamethasone is a prerequisite to observe odontoblastlike differentiation, nodule formation and mineralization. However, we recently described a model of human pulp cells cultured in RPMI 1640 in which the formation of mineralized nodules was observed without supplementation (Alliot-Licht et al, 2001). The progenitor cells capable of commitment into odontoblast-like cells that produce reparative dentine after injury as well as the cells that differentiate in odontoblast-like in culture are not yet identified.…”

“…It is suggested that odontoblast-like progenitors derive from a perivascular niche within dental pulp and recently, Tecles and co-authors clearly demonstrated that perivascular progenitor/stem cells can proliferate in response to dentin injury (Tecles et al, 2005). In human as well as in porcine dental pulp cultures, α-smooth muscle actin-positive (SMA+) cells, identified as vascular-derived pericytes, were observed (Gronthos et al, 2000;Alliot-Licht et al, 2001;Brock et al, 2002;Shi and Gronthos, 2003). However, at the moment no information is available on the potential effect of medium on the expression of SMA in dental pulp cultures.…”