"Bioteeth" Grown From Gum Cells

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Dentistry Also Included In: Stem Cell Research Article Date: 11 Mar 2013 - 3:00 PDT

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However, it may be some years before what has been achieved in the lab is available to patients sitting in the dentist's chair. The researchers had to combine the human gum cells with a type of embryonic mouse cell to instruct the gum cells to make teeth. The next challenge is to find a human adult cell that can be coaxed to do the same.

Paul Sharpe, a professor at King's College London, and colleagues, report their work in the 4 March online before print issue of the Journal of Dental Research.

A bioengineered "living" tooth would preserve the health of the surrounding tissue much better than an artificial implant, as Sharpe, an expert in craniofacial development and stem cell biology, explained in 2004, when he and his colleagues received a grant of 0.5m (about $0.8m) to develop a way to use stem cells to make a new tooth:

"Teeth are living, and they are able to respond to a person's bite. They move and in doing so they maintain the health of the surrounding gums and teeth."

So research has focused on generating immature teeth (teeth primordia) that mimic those in the embryo and can be transplanted as small cell "pellets" into the adult human jaw to grow into functional teeth.

What is remarkable is that even though the cell environments of the embryo and adult jaw are quite different, embryonic immature teeth can deveop normally in the adult mouth.

The challenge to researchers is to find a source of suitable cells that would make the method clinically viable, as Sharpe explains:

"What is required is the identification of adult sources of human epithelial and mesenchymal cells that can be obtained in sufficient numbers to make biotooth formation a viable alternative to dental implants."

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"Bioteeth" Grown From Gum Cells