Wisdom teeth could hold regenerative medicine answers
An interesting article titled “A single-cell atlas of human teeth” written by Pierfrancesco Pagella et al. appears in iScience (vol. 24, no. 102405, May 21, 2021). In the article the researchers analyzed five wisdom teeth that had been extracted to conduct a comprehensive single-cell atlas of the human tooth. The cells studied came from these five wisdom teeth and were extracted by dentists in Zurich. Isolating the cells from these wisdom teeth may have introduced variability between samples and some cells may not have survived the isolation process. Even so, the study found novel insights into how stem cells work which could help answer questions in regenerative medicine. In the study, the researchers at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich used single-cell RNA sequencing to investigate cells present in dental pulp and the periodontium. The researchers compared patterns of … Read more