Researchers have moved a little bit closer to the day when new teeth can be grown to replace damaged or missing teeth.

One set of researchers has succeeded in growing teeth tissue on bio-degradable “scaffolding” in rats. Another group has ben able to coax stem cells to form tooth structures in mice.

Both reports appear in the July issue of the Journal of Dental Research.

The reports “highlight exciting advances in moving toward the tissue engineering of teeth,” Dr. Anthony J. Smith notes in an editorial that accompanies the studies.

“The future for regenerative and tissue-engineering applications to dentistry is one with immense potential, capable of bringing quantum advances in treatment for our patients,” notes Smith, who is the editor of the journal.

“These observations offer very exciting opportunities for replacement of natural teeth damaged through disease or trauma” or for missing teeth, Smith concludes.

Dr. Paul T. Sharpe of King’s College in London, the lead author of one of the reports, explained to Reuters Health that teeth form from two types of cells in the embryo.

“If we can find substitutes for these cells that we can obtain easily from adults - i.e. stem cells - then it is feasible that we could use tissue engineering techniques to reproduce a developing tooth” in the laboratory, Sharpe said. This could be used to replace lost teeth, he explained.

Sharpe and his colleagues took non-dental stem cells from mice and coaxed them to form tooth material. These cells continued to form tooth material when transferred into mice jaws.

“Our work shows that we can replace one of these cell types by adult stem cells and obtain teeth and associated bone,” Sharpe said. In addition, Sharpe, said, the researchers showed “that such developing tooth tissues can be transplanted into the mouth and continue to develop to form teeth and bone.”

Sharpe said that the next step is to replace the other type of cell that is used to form teeth in embryos and to begin to experiment with human cells.

The other researchers, led by Dr. Pamela C. Yelick at the Forsyth Institute in Boston, also worked on bioengineering teeth, but they started with cells from “tooth buds,” the early structures from which teeth are formed.

Yelick’s team cultured rat tooth bud cells in the lab and then seeded them on biodegradable scaffolding. As was the case in earlier experiments in pigs, the tooth bud cells grew to form tooth material.

“The results of the study significantly advance current tooth-tissue-engineering efforts by demonstrating a general application to mammals,” Yelick and her colleagues conclude.

SOURCE: Journal of Dental Research, July 2004.