Dental follicle cells combined with beta-tricalcium phosphate ceramic: A novel available therapeutic strategy to restore periodontal defects

Tissue-engineering strategies to restore the periodontal defects are being developed. It will result in the periodontal formation and growing new function tissue rather than new replacement of periodontium. Although a number of procedures have been investigated in an attempt to regenerate lost periodontal tissue, none has yet led to new cementum formation, remodeling of the periodontal ligament, and new bone formation in clinic. Dental follicle cells (DFCs), as a progenitor cell of periodontal ligament cell and stem cell, have more potential abilities than PDL-cell in formation of periodontal tissue. More researches focus on the inductive environments, such as bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2), dexamethasone, and transfer growth factor, and scaffold. We hypotheses that DFCs from Beagle's dog are isolated, induced by BMP-2, basic-fibroblast growth factor and dexamethasone, and seeded by beta-tricalcium phosphate ceramic (beta-TCP), then the complex was auto-implanted into the periodontal defects in the same Beagle's dog to observe the regeneration of periodontal tissue in vivo. The study will explore the feasibility and application of restore of periodontal defects by DFCs-beta-TCP complex. We believe it is especially helpful to future clinical study and application. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.