Harnessing natural stem cell-based strategies for mammalian dental renewal

项目摘要/摘要 通过发现动物通常用来更新和再生组织的策略，我们可以为 人类再生方法的基础。我的实验室的主要长期目标之一 是通过整合发育和进化来理解哺乳动物的更新和再生 透视。为了做到这一点，我们正在使用牙列作为一个模型，并利用一个了不起的 在不同的哺乳动物物种中发现的一种特性，即基于以下条件持续生长牙齿的能力 成体干细胞的存在。尽管取得了初步进展，但我们的知识中存在许多差距和挑战 留下来。我们仍处于了解牙齿干细胞如何在切牙上皮中的早期阶段 表现良好，我们对间充质干细胞知之甚少。我们还有很多东西需要学习 牙齿干细胞是如何进化的，它们在发育过程中是如何在胚胎中出现的。计划的整体范围 这里提出的研究计划将与这些基本问题作斗争：成体干细胞如何 细胞能使器官再生吗？牙齿中的干细胞如何对环境影响做出反应 冬眠和武力？在哺乳动物牙列的进化过程中，干细胞是如何出现的？做什么 胚胎中的祖细胞为牙齿发育提供了起始材料？我们能瞄准牙齿吗？ 祖先是用来治愈疾病的？我们工作的影响将是提供坚实的基础科学基础 对于未来的再生方法，通过深入了解自然哺乳动物的系统 换牙。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT By discovering the strategies that animals normally use to renew and regenerate their tissues, we can lay a foundation for regenerative approaches in humans. One of the principal long-term goals of my laboratory is to understand mammalian renewal and regeneration by integrating developmental and evolutionary perspectives. To do this, we are using the dentition as a model and are taking advantage of a remarkable property that is found in diverse mammalian species, which is the ability to grow teeth continuously based on the presence of adult stem cells. Despite initial progress, many gaps and challenges in our knowledge remain. We are still in the early stages of understanding how dental stem cells in the incisor epithelium behave, and we know very little about the mesenchymal stem cells. We also have a great deal to learn about how dental stem cells evolved and how they arise in the embryo during development. The overall scope of the research program proposed here will be to contend with these fundamental questions: How do adult stem cells enable the organ to renew? How do the stem cells in teeth respond to environmental influences such as hibernation and force? How did stem cells emerge during evolution of the mammalian dentition? How do progenitor cells in the embryo provide the starting materials for tooth development? Can we target tooth progenitors to cure disease? The impact of our work will be to provide a solid basic science foundation for future regenerative approaches by obtaining deep insight into a system of natural mammalian dental renewal.