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Bioengineered Dental Tissues Grown in the Rat Jaw

S.E. Duailibi^1,, M.T. Duailibi^1,, W. Zhang², R. Asrican³, J.P. Vacanti⁴, and P.C. Yelick^2,*

¹ University Federal of São Paulo, Department of Plastic Surgery, UNIFESP-CINTERGEN, Interdisciplinary Center of Gene Therapy, São Paulo, Brazil;
² Division of Craniofacial and Molecular Genetics, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Tufts University, Boston, MA 02111, USA;
³ Department of Cytokine Biology, The Forsyth Institute, and Department of Developmental Biology, Harvard School of Dental Medicine,
⁴ Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication, Massachusetts General Hospital and Department of Surgery, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

^* corresponding author, Division of Craniofacial and Molecular Genetics, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Tufts University, 136 Harrison Avenue, Room M824, Boston, MA 02111, USA, pamela.yelick{at}tufts.edu

Our long-term objective is to develop methods to form, in the jaw, bioengineered replacement teeth that exhibit physical properties and functions similar to those of natural teeth. Our results show that cultured rat tooth bud cells, seeded onto biodegradable scaffolds, implanted into the jaws of adult rat hosts and grown for 12 weeks, formed small, organized, bioengineered tooth crowns, containing dentin, enamel, pulp, and periodontal ligament tissues, similar to identical cell-seeded scaffolds implanted and grown in the omentum. Radiographic, histological, and immunohistochemical analyses showed that bioengineered teeth consisted of organized dentin, enamel, and pulp tissues. This study advances practical applications for dental tissue engineering by demonstrating that bioengineered tooth tissues can be regenerated at the site of previously lost teeth, and supports the use of tissue engineering strategies in humans, to regenerate previously lost and/or missing teeth. The results presented in this report support the feasibility of bioengineered replacement tooth formation in the jaw.

KEY WORDS: tooth tissue engineering • dental stem cells • mandibular model