Recent advancements in regenerative dentistry: A review

Abstract

Although human mouth benefits from remarkable mechanical properties, it is very susceptible to traumatic damages, exposure to microbial attacks, and congenital maladies. Since the human dentition plays a crucial role in mastication, phonation and esthetics, finding promising and more efficient strategies to reestablish its functionality in the event of disruption has been important. Dating back to antiquity, conventional dentistry has been offering evacuation, restoration, and replacement of the diseased dental tissue. However, due to the limited ability and short lifespan of traditional restorative solutions, scientists have taken advantage of current advancements in medicine to create better solutions for the oral health field and have coined it "regenerative dentistry." This new field takes advantage of the recent innovations in stem cell research, cellular and molecular biology, tissue engineering, and materials science etc. In this review, the recently known resources and approaches used for regeneration of dental and oral tissues were evaluated using the databases of Scopus and Web of Science. Scientists have used a wide range of biomaterials and scaffolds (artificial and natural), genes (with viral and non-viral vectors), stem cells (isolated from deciduous teeth, dental pulp, periodontal ligament, adipose tissue, salivary glands, and dental follicle) and growth factors (used for stimulating cell differentiation) in order to apply tissue engineering approaches to dentistry. Although they have been successful in preclinical and clinical partial regeneration of dental tissues, whole-tooth engineering still seems to be far-fetched, unless certain shortcomings are addressed.

Injectable and tunable hyaluronic acid hydrogels releasing chemotactic and angiogenic growth factors for endodontic regeneration

“…Due to hydrogels high water content (usually !90%), they provide stable and flexible wet matrices with adequate porosity for diffusion of nutrients, and cellular waste [5,6]. Hydrogels can also efficiently incorporate and release biological agents, important to enhance the revascularization of the root canal system, and the simultaneous regeneration of the dentin-pulp complex [7]. The injectable hydrogels are of particular interest as they can be delivered through minimally invasive surgical procedures [8][9][10][11], and produced in situ to conform to the required defect dimensions [12].…”

Leptin Overexpression in Bone Marrow Stromal Cells Promotes Periodontal Regeneration in a Rat Model of Osteoporosis

“…A major obstacle to successful tissue regeneration is the difficulty in targeting growth factors to periodontal lesions. Therefore, alternative strategies such as tissue engineering combined with gene therapy have been proposed 22 . Gene‐enhanced tissue engineering can overcome limitations of topical growth factor administration and is therefore attracting growing interest in tissue regeneration studies.…”

Terapias para regeneração do disco articular

“…O desenvolvimento de terapias regenerativas na odontologia tem sido o foco de diversos estudos que buscam o reestabelecimento de tecidos perdidos ou acometido por patologias 20,24,39,40 . A regeneração do disco articular tem sido realizada, basicamente, por meio de experimentos in vitro 41 e in vivo 11,12 .…”