Stem Cells from Dental Pulp: What Epigenetics Can Do with Your Tooth

Abstract

Adult stem cells have attracted scientific attention because they are able to self-renew and differentiate into several specialized cell types. In this context, human dental tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hDT-MSCs) have emerged as a possible solution for repairing or regenerating damaged tissues. These cells can be isolated from primary teeth that are naturally replaced, third molars, or other dental tissues and exhibit self-renewal, a high proliferative rate and a great multilineage potential. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms that determine lineage specification are still largely unknown. It is known that a change in cell fate requires the deletion of existing transcriptional programs, followed by the establishment of a new developmental program to give rise to a new cell lineage. Increasing evidence indicates that chromatin structure conformation can influence cell fate. In this way, reversible chemical modifications at the DNA or histone level, and combinations thereof can activate or inactivate cell-type-specific gene sequences, giving rise to an alternative cell fates. On the other hand, miRNAs are starting to emerge as a possible player in establishing particular somatic lineages. In this review, we discuss two new and promising research fields in medicine and biology, epigenetics and stem cells, by summarizing the properties of hDT-MSCs and highlighting the recent findings on epigenetic contributions to the regulation of cellular differentiation.

Assessing the effect of triethyleneglycol dimethacrylate on tissue repair in 3D organotypic cultures

“…In this study, two cell types, GFs and DPMCs, originating from different anatomical sites and having distinctive roles in regeneration and healing of damaged periodontal (Sisman, Aksoy, Yalcin, & Karaoz, 2016;Smith, Caceres, Martinez, Oyarzun, & Martinez, 2015) and dental pulp tissues (Patil et al, 2014;Rodas-Junco, Canul-Chan, Rojas-Herrera, De-la-Pena, & Nic-Can, 2017;Sonoyama et al, 2008) were assessed for their potential to regenerate gingival connective tissues (lamina propria) (Chiquet et al, 2015) and dental pulp (Huang, Gronthos, & Shi, 2009) in vitro. Such assessment is seen as necessary in predicting a success of restoration of deciduous teeth or traumatized tissues and the formation of tertiary dentin as a protective barrier for dental pulp.…”

Progress in research on functional mechanisms of mesenchymal stem cells

“…MSCs的细胞分化和转分化领域 [174] . MSCs细胞内 DNA和组蛋白上发生的可逆化学修饰, 能改变MSCs 的分化潜能, 并决定细胞最终的分化命运 [175] . Saidi等 人 [176] [186] .…”

Teeth‐derived stem cells: A source for cell therapy

“…The identification molecular mechanisms involved in lineage specification could contribute to better understanding of TDSCs behavior. Increasing evidence indicated that a variety of cellular and molecular mechanisms could affect the stem cells fate (Rodas‐Junco et al, ). These mechanisms control stem cells fate behaviors during development.…”

“…MiRNAs are other factors that could be involved in dental stem cells fate (Rodas‐Junco et al, ). miRNAs are small noncoding RNAs that act as epigenetic regulators (Gholamin et al, ; Golabchi et al, ; Keshavarzi et al, ; Mirzaei et al, ; Mirzaei et al, ).…”