Scaffoldless Tissue-engineered Dental Pulp Cell Constructs for Endodontic Therapy

A major cause of apical periodontitis after endodontic treatment is the bacterial infiltration which could have been challenged by the presence of a vital pulp. In this study, self-assembled, scaffoldless, three-dimensional (3D) tissues were engineered from dental pulp cells (DPCs) and assessed as a device for pulp regeneration. These engineered tissues were placed into the canal space of human tooth root segments that were capped on one end with calcium phosphate cement, and the entire system was implanted subcutaneously into mice. Histological staining indicated that after three- and five-month implantations, tooth roots containing 3D scaffoldless engineered tissues maintained a cellular, fibrous tissue throughout, whereas empty tooth roots remained predominantly empty. Immunostaining indicated that the tissue found in the root canals containing scaffoldless DPC engineered tissues was vascular, as characterized by the expression of CD31, and contained odontoblast-like cells organized along the length of the root wall as assessed by immunostaining for dentin sialoprotein. This study shows that 3D self-assembled scaffoldless DPC engineered tissues can regenerate a vital dental pulp-like tissue in a tooth root canal system and are therefore promising for endodontic therapy.