Tiny bricks for oral bioprinting: Exploring gingiva and dental pulp-derived organ building blocks
Today, Organ Building Blocks (OBBs) serve as an important tool for the in vitro tissue modeling, personalized medicine, and regenerative approaches. Despite the achieved advances in dental reconstruction methods, tissues of the oral cavity remain challenging to regenerate due to their complex structure and microenvironment. At the same time, the need for effective regeneration of the periodontal complex persists, e.g., in such diseases as periodontitis, since current methods do not achieve the complete tissue restoration. Cells from the gingiva and dental pulp are accessible sources of mesenchymal stem cells with a high regenerative potential, that makes them promising materials for creating OBBs. These cells can serve as fundamental units in restoring the periodontal complex using such techniques as 3D bioprinting. This study is aimed at the characterization and comparison of OBBs formed from gingival cells, pulp cells, and their combinations by assessing the key parameters, including the morphology, extracellular matrix composition, biomechanical properties, histology, and metabolic activity. Combining the two cell types improved the structural, mechanical, and functional properties of OBBs, making them more suitable for bioprinting compared to OBBs from only one cell type. Moreover, all types of OBBs from the two cell cultures may be suitable as components of bioinks, depending on the specific purposes. The obtained results provide an insight into the potential use of these cell sources for tissue engineering and development of personalized periodontal bio-constructs, that may significantly improve treatment approaches for oral diseases.
