Scientists Advance Efforts to Regrow Teeth With Enamel-Producing Cells
Researchers have taken another step toward the possibility of regrowing teeth, developing a method that transforms human stem cells into enamel-producing cells that could eventually be used to regenerate damaged or missing tooth structure. The study, published in the International Journal of Oral Science , investigated how scientists could guide human stem cells toward becoming ameloblasts, the specialized cells responsible for producing tooth enamel. Unlike most cells in the human body, ameloblasts are not naturally regenerated after tooth development, which makes enamel one of the few tissues the body cannot repair on its own. Researchers focused on the Notch signaling pathway, which plays an important role in the development and maturation of ameloblasts. The team developed a soluble Notch agonist designed to activate this pathway and found that it could promote the maturation of stem-cell-derived ameloblasts. The resulting ce...
