Immortalization and characterization of human dental pulp cells with odontoblastic differentiation.

Objective: To immortalize human dental pulp (HDP) cell showing stable growth and high mineralization activities in vitro.

Design: HDP cells were obtained from a healthy third molar and immortalized by transfection with human telomerase transcriptase (hTERT) gene. To examine the characters of hTERT transfected HDP (HDP-hTERT) cells, we examined expression of mRNA for dentin sialophosphoprotein (DSSP), type I collagen (COLI), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and bone sialoprotein (BSP) by RT-PCR.