What Is the Role of Dental Stem Cells in the Stem Cell Transplantation?
Dental stem cells (DSCs) have been known over the last decade through medical and dental research as economic or cost-friendly research-based options to be utilized soon for their attractive and valuable potency in stem cell transplant therapies. This is mainly because of the success of several large-scale research-based approaches that have succeeded from a laboratory scale, and which researchers deem DSCs or dental stem cells to possess high potency because of their immunomodulatory properties. However, researchers state that without the use of the idealistic or appropriate scaffold materials, such as the biomaterials used as the base for these stem cells, to undergo their differentiation or migratory properties, would be not possible. The importance of the scaffold materials used in stem cell therapy, when dental stem cells are used specifically is then understood..
Scaffold materials. that are filled with desirable biomolecules aid stem cells obtained or isolated from dental tissues to express themselves into any somatic cells by their proliferative, differentiative, and migratory capabilities. These biomolecules are usually a combination of several important growth factors and cytokine molecules that can trigger or aid in these multifunctional roles of dental stem cells. In short, it is the scaffold materials that can improve the functions of these cells.
What Are the Different Dental Stem Cell Isolates?
After understanding the importance of the scaffold, dental researchers have experimented with different kinds of dental stem cells in the last two decades. Dental stem cells can be isolated depending on the location or the part of dental tissues. The following are the different types of dental stem cells :
1. Embryonic Stem Cells or ESCs: They are also called in the medical and dental research literature as pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which exhibit potency to transform into somatic adult cells both in vitro and in vivo. These embryonic stem cells are used the most in clinical research as well as in regenerative therapies and several pharmaceutical experiments in modern-day dentistry.
Embryonic SCs (ESCs) are the cells isolated from the inner layer of the embryo right before implantation, such as from mice models, monkeys, or human models. These are used greatly in stem cell transplantation and for research purposes only. Human-derived ESCs; however, are the only stem cells that have the "pluripotent" capacity, meaning that these cells can distinguish themselves into different types of cells in the body, such as the somatic cells that form organ systems. These are of great value to original repair or regeneration therapies.
2. Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells or iPSCs: The second type of cells are the induced Pluripotent SCs (iPSCs) which are mainly because researchers reprogram the somatic cells from human adult tissues and then convert them to stem cells. iPSCs are readily more accessible because they can be isolated easily from human subjects, especially in terms of dental applications or management in comparison to ESCs that are more difficult to isolate.
The biologic role of iPSCs in research-based dentistry and stem cell transplantation is demonstrated because of their potency in regenerating deficient or missing jawbone, periodontal tissues, teeth that are naturally lost, or even in the regeneration and repair of human salivary glands. iPSCs in combination with enamel matrix derivatives have the potency to even enhance periodontal tissue regeneration (periodontium comprising cementum, alveolar bone, and the periodontal ligament that forms the anchorage and supporting tooth structure).
3. Bone Marrow Stem Cells or BMSCs: These cells have the potent ability to repair and regenerate both tooth and bone tissues as well. BMSCs are either isolated from the iliac crest (the largest bone of the pelvis) commonly or from the orofacial bone. The maxillary (upper jaw) and mandibular (lower jaw) bones originate from the cranial nerve crest cells, while the origin of the iliac bone is from the mesoderm cells.
Dental research demonstrates that compared to even pluripotent stem cells, the bone marrow stem cells obtained from oral or orofacial tissues hold much greater potential for stem cell proliferation, differentiation, and transplantation therapies.
4. Dental Tissue-Derived Stem Cells: These are again categorized further into oral epithelial stem cells (OESCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). These are basically the two different types of mature SCs one can find in the tooth tissues and isolate.
Dental tissues, mainly the highly vascular and innervated dental pulp and the supporting structure of the tooth, the periodontium or the periodontal (gum or gingival along with the surrounding bone) tissues, have the potency to aid or regenerate restorative dentin, which is the major functioning component of the tooth post-dental surgeries or operations.
Dental researchers have isolated these tissue-derived stem cells under these suitable dental surgical conditions and have been analyzing them for their future or prospective dental as well as stem cell therapy applications.
5. Dental Pulp Stem Cells (DPSCs): These DPSCs are SCs, which can be either isolated from the pulp tissue of the extracted third molar or wisdom tooth of the jaw alternatively these have also been obtained in recent years from cells of pulp polyps which is a pathologic tooth condition occurring in children and young adolescents (condition of hyperplastic pulpits of the tooth).
DPSCs have been studied for their ability to differentiate into osteoblast cells or bone cells, fat cells like adipocytes (Cells specialized in storing fat) and chondrocytes (Cells responsible for cartilage formation), muscle cells, melanoma cells (Malignant cells derived from melanocytes, responsible for skin cancer), and even endothelial cells (Cells lining the interior surface of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels), according to stem cell research.
It would be surprising to know that dental stem cells can even hold futuristic potential for diabetes (high blood glucose) patients, as they can easily differentiate in laboratory conditions as of now with a proper scaffold, into the islet cell aggregates of the pancreas that produce insulin hormone.
Conclusion
It is important to know that from the research-based dentistry results, it has been demonstrated that dental stem cells alone without a scaffold or a desirable bioactive material cannot actively possess all these idealistic properties that are being explored in stem cell therapy and transplantation. Dental research has hence, extensively focused on the isolation of different kinds of stem cells from dental tissues that can be used in the near future in stem cell therapies.
