Dental Pulp Stem Cells Derived From Adult Human Third Molar Tooth: A Brief Review

Abstract

The fields of regenerative medicine and stem cell-based tissue engineering have the potential of treating numerous tissue and organ defects. The use of adult stem cells is of particular interest when it comes to dynamic applications in translational medicine. Recently, dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) have been traced in third molars of adult humans. DPSCs have been isolated and characterized by several groups. DPSCs have promising characteristics including self-renewal capacity, rapid proliferation, colony formation, multi-lineage differentiation, and pluripotent gene expression profile. Nevertheless, genotypic, and phenotypic heterogeneities have been reported for DPSCs subpopulations which may influence their therapeutic potentials. The underlying causes of DPSCs' heterogeneity remain poorly understood; however, their heterogeneity emerges as a consequence of an interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic cellular factors. The main objective of the manuscript is to review the current literature related to the human DPSCs derived from the third molar, with a focus on their physiological properties, isolation procedures, culture conditions, self-renewal, proliferation, lineage differentiation capacities and their prospective advances use in pre-clinical and clinical applications.

Keywords: dental pulp stem cells; hepatogenic and pancreatic differentiation; heterogeneity; human DPSCs; immunomodulation; surface markers.

FIGURE 1

Oral tissue and dental stem cells. (A) A schematic outline for the tooth development. Ectoderm cells contribute to the formation of the tooth enamel only, whereas, neural crest cells generate the rest of the tooth tissues. (B) Sources of oral tissue and dental stem cells. GMSCs, gingiva-derived mesenchymal stem cells; DFPCs, dental follicle precursor cells; SCAP, stem cells from apical papilla; PDLSCs, periodontal ligament stem cells; DPSCs, dental pulp stem cells; SHED, stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth, ABMSCs, alveolar bone–derived mesenchymal stem cell. (C) A schematic illustration of the dental stem cells multilineage differentiation potential. Created with BioRender.com.