A vida de dez pacientes cegos ou quase cegos de São Paulo pode começar a ganhar outro rumo nos próximos meses. Ainda em processo de seleção, eles serão voluntários em uma experiência pioneira no mundo: a restauração da córnea por meio de uma membrana de células-tronco desenvolvidas em laboratório, a partir da polpa retirada de dentes de leite extraídos de crianças entre 4 e 12 anos de idade.
Dental pulp from deciduous (baby) teeth, which are discarded after exfoliation, represents an advantageous source of young stem cells. Herein, we discuss the methods of deciduous teeth stem cell (DTSC) isolation and cultivation.We show that based on these methods, at least three different stem cell populations can be identified: a population similar to bone marrow–derived mesenchymal stem cells, an epithelial stem–like cells, and/or a mixed population composed of both cell types.
Dental pulp (DP) can be extracted from child’s primary teeth (deciduous), whose loss occurs spontaneously by about 5 to 12 years. Thus, DP presents an easy accessible source of stem cells without ethical concerns. Substantial quantities of stem cells of an excellent quality and at early (2–5) passages are necessary for clinical use, which currently is a problem for use of adult stem cells. Herein, DPs were cultured generating stem cells at least during six months through multiple mechanical transfers into a new culture dish every 3–4 days. We compared stem cells isolated from the same DP before (early population, EP) and six months after several mechanical transfers (late population, LP).
The main aim of this study is to evaluate the capacity of human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSC), isolated from deciduous teeth, to reconstruct largesized cranial bone defects in nonimmunosuppressed (NIS) rats. To our knowledge, these cells were not used before in similar experiments. We performed two symmetric full-thickness cranial defects (5 8 mm) on each parietal region of eight NIS rats. In six of them, the left side was supplied with collagen membrane only and the right side (RS) with collagen membrane and hDPSC. In two rats, the RS had collagen membrane only and nothing was added at the left side (controls).
We report the isolation of a population of immature dental pulp stem cells (IDPSC), which express embryonic stem cell markers Oct-4, Nanog, SSEA-3, SSEA-4, TRA-1-60 and TRA-1-81 as well as several other mesenchymal stem cell markers during at least 25 passages while maintaining the normal karyotype and the rate of expansion characteristic of stem cells. The expression of these markers was maintained in subclones obtained from these cells.