Tissue Eng Regen Med.  2016 Aug;13(4):428-436. 10.1007/s13770-016-0005-2.

Indirect Co-Culture of Stem Cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous Teeth and Oral Cells in a Microfluidic Platform

• Kang KJ
• Ju SM
• Jang YJ
• Kim J

• KMID: 2382942
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1007/s13770-016-0005-2

Abstract

Oral epithelial-mesenchymal interactions play a key role in tooth development and assist differentiation of dental pulp. Many epithelial and mesenchymal factors in the microenvironment influence dental pulp stem cells to differentiate and regenerate. To investigate the interaction between oral cells during differentiation, we designed a microfluidic device system for indirect co-culture. The system has several advantages, such as consumption of low reagent volume, high-throughput treatment of reagents, and faster mineralization analysis. In this study, stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth were treated with media cultured with human gingival fibroblasts or periodontal ligament stem cells. When human exfoliated deciduous teeth was incubated in media cultured in human gingival fibroblasts and human periodontal ligament stem cells under the concentration gradient constructed by the microfluidic system, no remarkable change in human exfoliated deciduous teeth mineralization efficiency was detected. However, osteoblast gene expression levels in human exfoliated deciduous teeth incubated with human gingival fibroblasts media decreased compared to those in human exfoliated deciduous teeth treated with human periodontal ligament stem cells media, suggesting that indirect co-culture of human exfoliated deciduous with human gingival fibroblasts may inhibit osteogenic cytodifferentiation. This microfluidic culture device allows a co-culture system set-up for sequential treatment with co-culture media and differentiation additives and facilitated the mineralization assay in a micro-culture scale.

Keyword

Microfluidic device; Indirect co-culture; Stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth; Osteogenic differentiation

MeSH Terms

Coculture Techniques*
Dental Pulp
Fibroblasts
Gene Expression
Humans*
Indicators and Reagents
Lab-On-A-Chip Devices
Microfluidics*
Miners
Osteoblasts
Periodontal Ligament
Stem Cells*
Tooth
Tooth, Deciduous*
Indicators and Reagents