Studies regarding the in vitro wound healing potential of mouse dental pulp stem-like progenitor cells

Abstract

Wound healing involves complex interactions between the motile epithelial cells and the extracellular matrix in response to activation by a high number of growth factors and cytokines involved both in inflammatory and wound healing process. In the present study a series of events which occur during the wound healing process in vivo were reproduced in vitro. The artificial wound was induced on a mouse dental pulp stem-like progenitor cell monolayer in addition to a series of factors involved in the inflammatory and re-epithelization process (TNF-alpha and FGF). At the same time the cell-matrix interactions using different surface coatings like: laminin, fibronectin and matrigel, which are playing a major role in cell adhesion, growth, migration and wound healing process, were observed. The results were compared to similar experiments on mouse dermal fibroblasts. For dental pulp stem-like progenitor cell high wound closure percentage was obtained on matrigel coating TNF-alpha treated cells (95% wound closure, at 72 hours). Similar experimental conditions induced 100% wound closure for dermal fibroblasts. TNFalpha has proved an important role in cell activation during wound closure independently of the type of coating used for cell cultivation. Significant differences were observed between the cell proliferative potential on matrigel comparing to fibronectin, laminin coatings (χ 2 test, p ≤ 0.05).