TOKYO UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE TAKAHASHI TSUJI'S LABORATORY

Tooth development

The idea is to reproduce the developmental process of organogenesis and develop functioning organs. In current research on whole-tooth regenerative therapy, a basic strategy is the transplantation of bioengineered tooth germ, which can develop into a fully functional tooth. Tooth arise from the tooth germ, which are induced by the reciprocal epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in the developing embryo. On embryonic day 11 (ED11) in mice, the epithelium thickens and invaginates into underlying mesenchyme. On ED14, the epithelium grows to surround the mesenchyme to form a cap-stage tooth germ. The ED15-ED18 tooth germ is in the "bell stage", epithelium and mesenchyme differentiate into ameloblasts, which later respectively become enamel and odontoblasts which will form dentin, and mesenchyme also differentiates into dental pulp and into periodontal tissues, which will become cementum, alveolar bone, and periodontal ligament.