The effects of hypoxia on in vitro culture of dental-derived stem cells

The culture of cells under hypoxia is considered one of the hot topics of tissue engineering, especially when exploring the proliferation capacity, a critical step for cellular-based therapies. The use of in vitro hypoxic environment aims to simulate the oxygen concentrations found in stem cell niches. Dental tissues are attractive sources of stem cells, as they are obtained from discarded tissue, after third molar extraction and exfoliation deciduous teeth, respectively. However, small amounts of cells are obtained from these sources. Thus, optimizing the in vitro conditions for proliferation and differentiation of these cells is essential for future regenerative strategies. This review presents a summary of the results regarding the effect of hypoxia on dental-derived stem cells after an electronic search on PubMed databases. The studies show increased differentiation potential and paracrine action of dental-derived stem cells under hypoxic environment. There are controversies related to proliferation of dental-derived stem cells under induced hypoxia. The lack of standardization in cell culture techniques contributes to these biases and future studies should describe in more detail the protocols used. The knowledge regarding the effect of hypoxia on dental-derived stem cells needs further clarification for assisting the clinical application of these cells. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.