The profile of cytokines against bacterial infection in dental pulp.

Background: Dental pulp in a confined environment, with little connection to the outside and only a small distribution of immune cells, provides a good research model for investigating how cells respond to bacterial infections through cytokines.

Methods: The data of single-cell transcriptome sequencing of healthy and inflamed pulp tissue were downloaded from the GEO dataset. The expression character of 79 cytokines was analyzed based on the expression matrix.

Results: The cytokine secretion profiles of the two populations of pulp cells in healthy dental pulp were associated with vascularization and nervous system development, as well as immune cell regulation. For the three populations of pulp stem cells with stem cell activity in the dental pulp, the secretion of cytokines related to nervous system development, regulation of endothelial cell proliferation and migration, and regulation of immune cell function comprised the characteristics that we observed. The cytokines secreted by T cells and macrophages were more of an immune reserve against pathogenic microorganisms. In the inflammatory state, the spectrum of cytokines secreted by various types of cells in the dental pulp tended to be identical, such that it mainly resisted pathogenic microorganisms.

Conclusions: The cytokine secretion profiles of various cell types in healthy and inflamed dental pulp at the single-cell level are summarized.