Dental Pulp Stem Cells and Their Applications in Tissue Engineering, Regeneration and Clinical Therapy

Dear Colleagues,

The human dental pulp has revealed itself as a unique reservoir of adult stem cells with an outstanding quality and applicability potential for tissue engineering and cell therapy in a variety of clinical contexts, including regenerative dentistry and reaching far beyond. Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) have the capacity to differentiate to many different mesenchymal and non-mesenchymal cell lineages, including neural and vascular cells. The differentiation commitment of DPSCs largely depends on different variables such as the culture system of choice (2D vs. 3D), the soluble factors present in the cell culture medium, as well as the physical characteristics of the used scaffold substrate, among others. DPSC behavior also shows a substantial plasticity in response to extracellular signaling, as well as metabolic and epigenetic cues, which can also critically modify their cellular response both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, the immunomodulatory properties of DPSCs make them very attractive candidates to be used either as live cell grafts or at the level of their extracellular vesicles and/or secretome, to treat diverse diseases and conditions where there is a pathological activation of the immune system. Furthermore, DPSCs have a markedly non-tumorigenic phenotype, and this is increasingly attracting the interest of cancer researchers seeking new therapeutic strategies to treat deadly tumors.

This Special Issue welcomes cutting-edge original research papers and comprehensive reviews dealing with DPSC biology and their current and potential applications on clinical therapy and tissue engineering and regeneration, with an emphasis on the expansion of the limits of knowledge of the DPSC field.

Prof. Gaskon Ibarretxe Bilbao
Dr. José Ramón Pineda
Guest Editors

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• Dental pulp stem cells 
• Cell differentiation 
• Tissue Engineering 
• Biomaterials 
• Scaffolds 
• Cell therapy 
• Tissue regeneration 
• Immune-regulation 
• Extracellular vesicles 
• Oncogenesis