A Promising Biomaterial for Periodontal Regenerative Therapy: Characteristics of the Cultured Human Periosteal Sheet
aDivision of Oral Bioengineering, Institute of Medicine and Dentistry, Niigata University
bDivision of Periodontology, Institute of Medicine and Dentistry, Niigata University
Abstract: We have developed and applied the tissue-engineered periosteal sheets in periodontal regenerative therapy. Periosteal sheets are simply prepared by explant culture and characterized as a highly integrated, tissue-engineered tissues composed mainly of cell-multilayers, abundant deposition of extracellular matrices. The osteogenic induction drastically up-regulates alkaline phosphatase activity and mineral deposit formation. This indicates that periosteal sheets contain many immature osteogenic progenitor cells, but the possible contamination of tissue-specific stem cells, which could eventually contribute to the osteogenic capacity, is not yet ruled out. In addition, periosteal sheets could be expected to function as “a living drug-delivery system (DDS)” to provide major growth factors involved in bone metabolism. Therefore, we believe the autologous periosteal sheet is a promising grafting material that is alternative to the autologous bone grafting in periodontal regenerative therapy. To expand this cell-based therapeutic methodology from periodontal field to other related fields, such as oral and maxillofacial surgery, plastic surgery, and orthopedic surgery, we are now investigating to improve the tissue-processing procedure, for example, by optimization of culture media and scaffolding materials.
Key words: Periodontal regenerative therapy, Cultured periosteal sheets, Scaffolds, Growth factors, Mesenchymal progenitor cells