Author(s)

Hideaki Ikenaga, Masataka Yoshikawa^*, Ayano Miyamoto, Hitomi Nakama, Ikuo Nishikawa, Satoshi Teramoto, Hiroaki Aso, Nozomi Matsuo, Hiroshi Maeda

Department of Endodontics, Osaka Dental University, Osaka, Japan.

One great advantage of bone marrow is that a large number of stem cells can be obtained. However, stem cells cannot be taken from the bone marrow of a patient for the purpose of regenerating teeth. In dental practice, it may not be practical to obtain mesenchymal stem cells for the regeneration of the tooth from iliac bone marrow, as in orthopedics. Therefore, establishment of a cell source for tooth regeneration is one of the important problems in the field of regenerative medicine. Although the isolation of undifferentiated mesenchymal stem cells or odontoblasts from dental pulp may be difficult, dental pulp may be a favorable source for stem cells to regenerate a tooth via tissue engineering. As a fundamental study for tooth regeneration, this study was performed in order to clarify the culture periods for proliferation and differentiation using rat dental pulp-derived cells. The results of this study were as follows: Primary culture of the dental pulp cells does not require a long period of time. However, for sufficient proliferation of dental pulp cells to form a calcified nodule in the secondary culture, a long culture period is required. Dexamethasone was essential for the formation of calcified nodules by dental pulp-derived cells. Calcified nodule formation by dental pulp-derived cells in vitro required more than one month. The duration of the secondary culture for the dental pulp-derived cells will be much longer.

Calcified Nodule, In Vitro, Dental Pulp Cells, Bone Marrow Cells, Dexamethasone

Ikenaga, H. , Yoshikawa, M. , Miyamoto, A. , Nakama, H. , Nishikawa, I. , Teramoto, S. , Aso, H. , Matsuo, N. and Maeda, H. (2018) Calcified Nodule Formation in Vitro Using Rat Mandibular Incisor Pulp Cells. Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 11, 327-337. doi: 10.4236/jbise.2018.1112027.