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

导致牙齿形成的细胞相互作用已被充分理解，但口腔粘膜牙龈（口腔粘膜与牙齿紧密接触的解剖学、组织学和功能上不同的部分）的发育过程却很少受到关注。一些研究表明，牙龈结缔组织是由表型不同的成纤维细胞亚群，但他们的身份仍然是模棱两可的。有趣的是，我们和其他实验室最近的研究结果表明，牙龈结缔组织细胞亚群可能来自神经嵴（NC）和中胚层在发展过程中。因此，牙龈成纤维细胞亚群的表型异质性可能由其发育起源决定。我们认为，牙龈提供了一个容易获得的来源，研究NC和中胚层来源的细胞亚群的基本特性。我们的总体长期目标是识别和表征牙龈中的这些成纤维细胞亚群，并利用这些信息来了解其他组织中成纤维细胞亚群的表型。

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.