Assessment of the Differentiation Potentiality of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Derived from Dental Follicle and Gingival Tissue

Abstract

Stem cell biology has become an important field in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering therapy since the discovery and characterization of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). MSCs can be isolated from many tissues, including bone marrow, adipose tissue, placenta and umbilical cord. All of these MSCs show fibroblast-like cell morphology, self-renewal capacities and multilineage differentiation potentiality. MSCs have also been isolated from human dental tissues, including dental pulp stem cells, stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth, stem cells from apical papilla, dental follicle cells and periodontal ligament stem cells. Those dental tissue-derived stem cells have potent capacities to differentiate into chondrogenic, osteogenic and odontogenic lineages and generate dental tissue structures. Many people have an impacted third molar that does not cause occlusion and have that impacted tooth extracted to avoid inflammation or orthodontic therapy. Such extracted teeth usually contain dental follicle and are commonly discarded as medical waste. Dental follicle contains MSCs in the tooth germ at various stages of development in different species. Therefore, the DF is a candidate source for isolating