Characterization of oral mucosal neural crest and mesoderm-derived connective tissue cells

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Cell interactions that lead to tooth formation are well understood but the processes involved in the development of oral mucosal gingiva—an anatomically, histologically and functionally distinct part of oral mucosa that is in close contact with teeth—have received little attention. Several studies have suggested that gingival connective tissue is composed of phenotypically distinct fibroblast subpopulations, but their identity has remained ambiguous. Interestingly, recent findings from our and other laboratories have indicated that gingival connective tissue cell subsets may derive from neural crest (NC) and mesoderm during development. Thus, the phenotypic heterogeneity of gingival fibroblast subpopulations may be determined by their developmental origin. We believe that gingiva provides an easily accessible source to study the fundamental properties of NC and mesoderm-derived cell subpopulations. Our general long-term goal is to identify and characterize these fibroblast subpopulations in gingiva and also use this information to understand the phenotype of fibroblast subsets in other tissues.