Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. Feb 6, 2017; 8(1): 1-6
Published online Feb 6, 2017. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v8.i1.1
Regenerative medicine using dental pulp stem cells for liver diseases
Shogo Ohkoshi, Hajime Hara, Haruka Hirono, Kazuhiko Watanabe, Katsuhiko Hasegawa
Shogo Ohkoshi, Hajime Hara, Haruka Hirono, Kazuhiko Watanabe, Katsuhiko Hasegawa, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Life Dentistry at Niigata, Nippon Dental University, Chuo-ku 951-8580, Japan
Author contributions: Ohkoshi S wrote the paper; Hara H, Hirono H, Watanabe K and Hasegawa K had critical discussions regarding the study and manuscript with Ohkoshi S.
Supported by A Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (25461012 to Shogo Ohkoshi) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors do not have any commercial affiliation or consultancy that could be construed as a conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Shogo Ohkoshi, MD, PhD, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Life Dentistry at Niigata, Nippon Dental University, 1-8 Hamaura-Cho, Chuo-ku 951-8580, Niigata-city, Japan. okoshi@ngt.ndu.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-25-2118243 Fax: +81-25-2671582
Received: August 31, 2016
Peer-review started: September 2, 2016
First decision: October 31, 2016
Revised: November 16, 2016
Accepted: December 16, 2016
Article in press: December 19, 2016
Published online: February 6, 2017
Processing time: 143 Days and 0.9 Hours
Abstract

Acute liver failure is a refractory disease and its prognosis, if not treated using liver transplantation, is extremely poor. It is a good candidate for regenerative medicine, where stem cell-based therapies play a central role. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are known to differentiate into multiple cell lineages including hepatocytes. Autologous cell transplant without any foreign gene induction is feasible using MSCs, thereby avoiding possible risks of tumorigenesis and immune rejection. Dental pulp also contains an MSC population that differentiates into hepatocytes. A point worthy of special mention is that dental pulp can be obtained from deciduous teeth during childhood and can be subsequently harvested when necessary after deposition in a tooth bank. MSCs have not only a regenerative capacity but also act in an anti-inflammatory manner via paracrine mechanisms. Promising efficacies and difficulties with the use of MSC derived from teeth are summarized in this review.

Keywords: Dental pulp; Mesenchymal stem cell; Regenerative medicine; Liver disease; Tooth bank

Core tip: Dental pulp contains a mesenchymal stem cell population that has a similar gene expression pattern to that of the bone marrow and differentiates into cells of multi-cellular lineages. There have been several reports showing hepatic differentiation of this stem cell population in the presence of specific growth factors in serum-free culture medium. Their self-renewal and high proliferative capacities verify their stem-cell character and suggest that they are a promising cell source of regenerative medicine for refractory liver diseases. Currently, these cells are in the stage of animal studies to prove the efficacy and safety of dental pulp stem cell-based medicine for liver diseases.