Bioengineering helps toothless mice smile again
FRANCE: In a world first, Japanese researchers reported Sunday
they had successfully replaced natural teeth in mice with teeth that
were created in a lab dish from single cells.
Writing in the journal Nature Methods, a team led by Takashi Tsuji of
the Tokyo University of Science describe how they took two kinds of cell
- mesenchymal and epithelial cells - that develop into a tooth.
They first grew each cell type separately to make larger numbers of
them and then injected them into a sticky protein called collagen.
The tooth germ grew into a tiny tooth about 1.3mm long. The
researchers then extracted the incisor from an eight-week-old adult
mouse and inserted the bioengineered tooth.
After two weeks, the transplant was found to be growing perfectly,
with root, enamel, dental pulp, bone, blood vessel - the same
composition and structure as a normal tooth.
The study "provides the first evidence of successful reconstitution
of an entire organ via the transplantion of bioengineered material," the
authors say.
The tooth could be grown in 14 days either in organ culture or in a
so-called sub-renal capsule, which means it was attached to the kidney
of another mouse in order to grow.
Paris, Sunday, AFP |