S53P4 Bioactive Glass Inorganic Ions for Vascularized Bone Tissue Engineering by Dental Pulp Pluripotent-Like Stem Cell Cocultures

3D hydrogel/ bioactive glass scaffolds in bone tissue engineering: Status and future opportunities

Repairing significant bone defects remains a critical challenge, raising the clinical demand to design novel bone biomaterials that incorporate osteogenic and angiogenic properties to support the regeneration of vascularized bone. Bioactive glass scaffolds can stimulate angiogenesis and osteogenesis. In addition, natural or synthetic polymers exhibit structural similarity with extracellular matrix (ECM) components and have superior biocompatibility and biodegradability. Thus, there is a need to prepare composite scaffolds of hydrogels for vascularized bone, which incorporate to improve the mechanical properties and bioactivity of natural polymers. In addition, those composites' 3-dimensional (3D) form offer regenerative benefits such as direct doping of the scaffold with ions. This review presents a comprehensive discussion of composite scaffolds incorporated with BaG, focusing on their effects on osteo-inductivity and angiogenic properties. Moreover, the adaptation of the ion-doped hydrogel composite scaffold into a 3D scaffold for the generation of vascularized bone tissue is exposed. Finally, we highlight the challenges and future of manufacturing such biomaterials.

Role and application of stem cells in dental regeneration: A comprehensive overview

Recently, a growing attention has been observed toward potential advantages of stem cell (SC)-based therapies in regenerative treatments. Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) are now considered excellent candidates for tissue replacement therapies and tissue engineering. Autologous MSCs importantly contribute to the state-of-the-art clinical strategies for SC-based alveolar bone regeneration. The donor cells and immune cells play a prominent role in determining the clinical success of MSCs therapy. In line with the promising future that stem cell therapy has shown for tissue engineering applications, dental stem cells have also attracted the attention of the relevant researchers in recent years. The current literature review aims to survey the variety and extension of SC-application in tissue-regenerative dentistry. In this regard, the relevant English written literature was searched using keywords: "tissue engineering", "stem cells", "dental stem cells", and "dentistry strategies". According to the available database, SCs application has become increasingly widespread because of its accessibility, plasticity, and high proliferative ability. Among the growing recognized niches and tissues containing higher SCs, dental tissues are evidenced to be rich sources of MSCs. According to the literature, dental SCs are mostly present in the dental pulp, periodontal ligament, and dental follicle tissues. In this regard, the present review has described the recent findings on the potential of dental stem cells to be used in tissue regeneration.

Discovering the Potential of Dental Pulp Stem Cells for Corneal Endothelial Cell Production: A Proof of Concept

Failure of corneal endothelium cell monolayer is the main cause leading to corneal transplantation. Autologous cell-based therapies are required to reconstruct in vitro the cell monolayer. Several strategies have been proposed using embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, although their use has ethical issues as well as limited clinical applications. For this purpose, we propose the use of dental pulp stem cells isolated from the third molars to form the corneal endothelium cell monolayer. We hypothesize that using dental pulp stem cells that share an embryological origin with corneal endothelial cells, as they both arise from the neural crest, may allow a direct differentiation process avoiding the use of reprogramming techniques, such as induced pluripotent stem cells. In this work, we report a two-step differentiation protocol, where dental pulp stem cells are derived into neural crest stem-like cells and, then, into corneal endothelial-like cells. Initially, for the first-step we used an adhesion culture and compared two initial cell sources: a direct formation from dental pulp stem cells with the differentiation from induced pluripotent stem cells. Results showed significantly higher levels of early stage marker AP2 for the dental pulp stem cells compared to induced pluripotent stem cells. In order to provide a better environment for neural crest stem cells generation, we performed a suspension method, which induced the formation of neurospheres. Results showed that neurosphere formation obtained the peak of neural crest stem cell markers expression after 4 days, showing overexpression of AP2, Nestin, and p75 markers, confirming the formation of neural crest stem-like cells. Furthermore, pluripotent markers Oct4, Nanog, and Sox2 were as well-upregulated in suspension culture. Neurospheres were then directly cultured in corneal endothelial conditioned medium for the second differentiation into corneal endothelial-like cells. Results showed the conversion of dental pulp stem cells into polygonal-like cells expressing higher levels of ZO-1, ATP1A1, COL4A2, and COL8A2 markers, providing a proof of the conversion into corneal endothelial-like cells. Therefore, our findings demonstrate that patient-derived dental pulp stem cells may represent an autologous cell source for corneal endothelial therapies that avoids actual transplantation limitations as well as reprogramming techniques.

Nanocellulose/bioactive glass cryogels as scaffolds for bone regeneration

A major challenge exists in the preparation of scaffolds for bone regeneration, namely, achieving simultaneously bioactivity, biocompatibility, mechanical performance and simple manufacturing. Here, cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) are introduced for the preparation of scaffolds taking advantage of their biocompatibility and ability to form strong 3D porous networks from aqueous suspensions. CNF are made bioactive for bone formation through a simple and scalable strategy that achieves highly interconnected 3D networks. The resultant materials optimally combine morphological and mechanical features and facilitate hydroxyapatite formation while releasing essential ions for in vivo bone repair. The porosity and roughness of the scaffolds favor several cell functions while the ions act in the expression of genes associated with cell differentiation. Ion release is found critical to enhance the production of the bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2) from cells within the fractured area, thus accelerating the in vivo bone repair. Systemic biocompatibility indicates no negative effects on vital organs such as the liver and kidneys. The results pave the way towards a facile preparation of advanced, high performance CNF-based scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.