Bone Abstracts

Constant remodeling of extracellular matrix is a hallmark during physiological conditions, such as stem cell differentiation, embryogenesis and tissue repair. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) play a key role in these processes. Mesenchymal stem cells derived from dental pulp are multipotent and have the capacity to differentiate into mesenchymal lineages. Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP) are a family of signaling molecules critically involved at various stages in the formation of a variety of tissues and organs including bones and teeth. Recently, BMP-7 has been described to induct DPSC differentiation into odontoblastic-like cells. However, it is unknown the gene expression profile of MMPs and TIMPs during osteogenic/odontogenic differentiation induction by BMP-7. In this study, we evaluated differential gene expression of MMPs and TIMPs during osteogenic/osteogenic differentiation induction from DPSCs in vitro by qPCR. DPSCs isolated from extracted human third molars (collagenase/dispase digestion at 37°C) were grown in α-MEM medium +10% FBS and differentiation induction in presence of osteogenic medium (10 mM β-glycerophosphate, 1 μM dexamethasone and 50 μg/ml ascorbate) and odontogenic medium (10 mM β-glycerophosphate, 1 μM dexamethasone and 50 μg/ml ascorbate +50 ng/mL BMP-7) for 21-days. During osteogenic differentiation, MMP-2, MMP-3, MMP-25 and TIMP-4 were downregulated upregulated throughout 21-days in relation to DPSC. During odontogenic differentiation, MMP-2, MMP-25 and TIMP-4 were upregulated from 7 to 21-days, whereas, MMP-3 was upregulated from 14 to 21-days. Our results suggest that BMP-7 may regulate MMP and TIMP gene expression during osteogenic/odontogenic differentiation in vitro from DPSCs.

Keywords: Dental pulp stem cells, MMP, TIMP, BMP-7, and osteoblast/odontoblast differentiation.