Origins and properties of dental stem cells

由于干细胞能够形成许多不同类型的细胞，因此在为各种疾病和失调提供新的临床治疗方面具有巨大的潜力。目前对干细胞的研究主要集中在两个方面：1。胚胎干细胞的使用。2. 成体干细胞的使用。胚胎干细胞是一个有吸引力的来源，因为它们易于生长，能够产生体内所有类型的细胞。胚胎干细胞的主要问题是，它们只能从早期胚胎中提取，从每个患者身上获得这些细胞是不可行的。如果不能做到这一点，任何胚胎干细胞疗法都可能需要免疫抑制来避免排斥反应。成体干细胞是存在于人体许多不同组织和器官中的细胞群，包括肠道、骨髓、头发和皮肤。这些细胞为临床应用提供了一个主要优势，因为它们可以从每个病人身上获得，因此不会被免疫系统排斥。成体干细胞的问题在于，它们通常数量很少，而且它们形成不同细胞类型的能力取决于组织来源。干细胞的理想来源是易于反复获取的细胞，可以很容易地在体外培养，并且它们的分化潜力是已知的，可以操纵的。目前还没有满足这些标准的单一干细胞来源。干细胞最近在牙齿中被发现，既有成人的，也有儿童自然脱落的乳牙。牙齿可以提供很容易获得的干细胞来源，而且由于儿童自然会失去多达20颗乳牙，因此有可能有20次机会将这些细胞储存起来以备将来使用。然而，目前对这些干细胞知之甚少，因此这个项目的目的是调查这些细胞的来源，并研究它们能够形成什么类型的细胞。这项研究将确定这些细胞在临床治疗中的可用性，并将为鉴定和纯化患者牙齿干细胞提供试剂。

Stem cells have an enormous potential for offering new clinical treatments of a wide variety of diseases and disorders because of their ability to form many different types of cells. Research on stem cells is currently focussed into two main general areas: 1. The use of embryonic stem cells (ES). 2. The use of adult stem cells.Embryonic stem cells are an attractive source because they are easy to grow and are capable of producing all cell types in the body. The main problem with ES cells is that they can only be derived from early stage embryos and obtaining these cells from each individual patient is not feasible. Without being able to do this any ES cell therapy may require immune suppression to avoid rejection.Adult stem cells are populations of cells that are found in many different tissues and organs of the body, including the intestine, bone marrow, hair and skin. These cells offer a major advantage for clinical use since they can be obtained from each patient and thus would not be rejected by the immune system. The problems with adult stem cells are that they are often present in small numbers and their ability to form different cell types varies depending on the tissue source. The ideal source of stem cells is one where the cells are easily and repeatedly accessible, can be easily cultured in vitro and their differentiation potentials are known and can be manipulated. Currently there is no single source of stem cells that satisfies these criteria. Stem cells have been recently identified in teeth, both from adults and from milk teeth naturally lost by children. Teeth may offer a source of stem cells that can be easily obtained and because children naturally lose up to 20 milk teeth, there is the potential of having 20 opportunities to bank these cells for future use. At present however very little is known about these stem cells and the aim of this project therefore is to investigate where these cells come from, and to study what cell types they are able to form. This research will determine how usable these cells will be for clinical therapies and will also provide the reagents for identifying and purifying dental stem cells from patients teeth.