Dental Pulp Stem Cell-Derived Conditioned Medium: An Attractive Alternative for Regenerative Therapy

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) have a lot of potential in regenerative medicine, and MSC-based therapies are currently explored in numerous research fields. Among these cells, deciduous or permanent dental pulp-MSC represent a promising option in tissue engineering. This expectation is based on their capacity to self-renew, to repair various damaged tissues and organs due to their multipotency, as well as their ability to modulate immune system. They present other advantages such as the harvesting by a simple, painless, and noninvasive procedure and the absence of ethical considerations. The role played by these cells in the reparative process is mainly attributed to paracrine mechanisms mediated by their secreted factors, namely the secretome. The secreted factors can be found in the cell culture medium, called conditioned medium (CM). Moreover, CM presents many advantages compared with cells such as possible use in allogeneic therapies. This minireview aims at investigating the therapeutic use of dental pulp MSC-derived CM to develop cell-free therapies. The analysis of the available literature illustrates its massive panel of potential applications: mainly reduction of inflammation, promotion of angiogenesis and neurogenesis, reduction of stroke or ischemia, and organ regeneration. Furthermore, studies often highlight its superiority over the other sources of CM derived from other stem cells for the same applications. Dental pulp MSC-derived CM is an attractive, noninvasive, and acellular tool for therapeutic approaches in regenerative medicine. This promising novel approach should be further explored for clinical applications.

Keywords: conditioned medium; dental pulp; mesenchymal stem cells; regenerative medicine; secretome.