A Current Overview of Scaffold-Based Bone Regeneration Strategies with Dental Stem Cells.

Bone defects due to trauma or diseases still pose a clinical challenge to be resolved in the current tissue engineering approaches. As an alternative to traditional methods to restore bone defects, such as autografts, bone tissue engineering aims to achieve new bone formation via novel biomaterials used in combination with multipotent stem cells and bioactive molecules. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can be successfully isolated from various dental tissues at different stages of development including dental pulp, apical papilla, dental follicle, tooth germ, deciduous teeth, periodontal ligament and gingiva.

Dental Stem Cells in Bone Tissue Engineering: Current Overview and Challenges.

The treatment of bone that is impaired due to disease, trauma or tumor resection creates a challenge for both clinicians and researchers. Critical size bone defects are conventionally treated with autografts which are associated with risks such as donor site morbidity and limitations like donor shortage. Bone tissue engineering has become a promising area for the management of critical size bone defects by the employment of biocompatible materials and the discovery of novel stem cell sources.

Influence of STRO-1 selection on osteogenic potential of human tooth germ derived mesenchymal stem cells.

Mesenchymal stem cells derived from the human tooth germ (hTGSCs) are a heterogeneous cell population that can differentiate into osteogenic, neurogenic, and adipogenic lineages. The aim of this study was to compare the osteogenic differentiation capacity of STRO-1 positive (STRO-1+) hTGSCs and unsorted heterogeneous hTGSCs and to establish if STRO-1+ cells are more committed to osteogenic differentiation. HTGSCs were isolated from impacted third molar tooth germ tissues of adolescents, and a subpopulation of STRO-1+ hTGSCs was obtained by fluorescence-activated cell sorting.