Chew on this.
A bioengineered tooth grows just like the real thing.
Credit: T. Tsuji
Posted on 02/21/2007 12:36:30 AM PST by neverdem
Denture wearers take heart. Scientists in Japan claim they have for the first time developed a reliable way to generate new mouse teeth in a Petri dish. Although any application to humans is years away, the team hopes the new approach could eventually lead to the regeneration of entire organs in the lab. Bioengeered organs are still in the earliest stage of development. Last year, Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University Medical School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and his colleagues transplanted some lab-grown bladders into human patients, a first for a discrete, complex organ. Efforts to grow working teeth, however, have met with difficulty.
In the new study, tissue engineer Takashi Tsuji of Tokyo University and colleagues started with separate populations of the two cell types that make teeth: epithelial cells and mesenchymal cells. Isolating the two types from the tooth germ--the nascent tooth tissue that hasn't erupted from the gum--of a mouse embryo, the researchers expanded each cell population to 105 cells each. They then injected both populations into a drop of collagen.
After 16 days, the cells had developed into another tooth germ. The scientists extracted the incisor of a separate mouse and popped the budding tooth into its cavity. The tooth developed normally, the team reports in the current online edition of Nature Methods, with pulp, blood vessels, and the beginnings of roots. The researchers say their method can also be used to make whiskers, which arise from the same cell types.
The scientists say they are still a long way from growing human teeth in the lab, however. The early tooth cells had to be taken from the embryo at the cap stage, which is when the tooth germ begins to form under its enamel coating. The process doesn't work with a later-stage tooth, which is why a different procedure will need to be worked out if humans are to be treated with freshly grown teeth. Tsuji says his team is now trying to identify human adult cell types that might be cultivated into teeth.
Although the Tsuji paper has gained considerable attention, there has been some controversy over its significance. Some scientists say Tsuji has not made any substantial advance over what others have already achieved in the lab. However, Jeremy Mao of the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine in New York City calls the study "an important milestone" in the field of tooth regeneration. The key advance of the study, he says, is that the tooth continued to develop and integrate with surrounding structures after it was implanted.
Chew on this.
A bioengineered tooth grows just like the real thing.
Credit: T. Tsuji
Stem Cell Ping
What the hell do I want mouse teeth for?
Regards.
Cool...by the time this is available to the public, I'll most likely need a few : )
Because the genes and the growth factors they generate, i.e. proteins, are usually analogous to humans, with some differences according to the variations amongst mammals.
All I want for Christmas...
Just beware of the donor source....
By the time this is widely available to the public and at a reasonable cost I will should be dead.
Bump
YeAh Baby!
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I was so excited by this news, that I gnawed my way through a baseboard into the pantry last night. However, by the cold light of dawn, maybe cat teeth would be a better idea?
What the hell do I want mouse teeth for?
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Don't you want to be able to chew through two by fours?
Don't rodent teeth grow continuously, and need to be worn down? That might be why they're so easy to create.
ProLife Ping!
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I'll take mine Al Dente!
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