Positive Stress" Can Make Tooth Stem Cells More Resistant to Disease
Stress is typically thought of as a negative phenomenon, but researchers at HKU Dentistry found “positive stress” that can induce good changes in tooth stem cells to make them more resistant to injury and disease.
The researchers found that oxidative stress caused by low-oxygen environment can elicit a protective response to make tooth stem cells less vulnerable to harm.
Once the tooth pulp tissue is fully infected, current treatment options are limited to either removing the diseased pulp and filling the emptied canal with artificial materials or extracting the tooth.
The research team developed a preconditioning protocol that modified the cells genetically to mimic a responsive state for low oxygen conditions in order to activate a protein that induces adaptive changes in the cells.
"In our study, we found that these cells activate a metabolic mechanism to produce energy under low oxygen conditions and scavenge harmful metabolites produced in stress conditions.” Dr Han explained.
"Former research has revealed that our cells possess number of adaptive mechanisms for stress, which are regulated by several key genes encoded in our DNA that are normally inactive," Dr Dissanayaka said. "If we can activate these genes, downstream expression of specific proteins can prime the cells less vulnerable to injury."
"Tooth stem cells have an inherent capacity to survive under stress" Dr Dissanayaka emphasized. "Our aim is to find ways to take advantage of this capacity and use positive stress to help regenerate the dental tissues."
ارسال به دوستان