A single-cell atlas of human teeth

Pierfrancesco Pagella; Laura de Vargas Roditi; Bernd Stadlinger; Andreas E Moor; Thimios A Mitsiadis

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102405

A single-cell atlas of human teeth

iScience. 2021 Apr 23;24(5):102405. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102405. eCollection 2021 May 21.

Authors

Pierfrancesco Pagella¹, Laura de Vargas Roditi², Bernd Stadlinger³, Andreas E Moor², Thimios A Mitsiadis¹

Affiliations

¹ Orofacial Development and Regeneration, Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Oral Biology, Center of Dental Medicine, University of Zurich, Plattenstrasse 11, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland.
² Institute of Molecular Cancer Research, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
³ Clinic of Cranio-Maxillofacial and Oral Surgery, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

Abstract

Teeth exert fundamental functions related to mastication and speech. Despite their great biomedical importance, an overall picture of their cellular and molecular composition is still missing. In this study, we have mapped the transcriptional landscape of the various cell populations that compose human teeth at single-cell resolution, and we analyzed in deeper detail their stem cell populations and their microenvironment. Our study identified great cellular heterogeneity in the dental pulp and the periodontium. Unexpectedly, we found that the molecular signatures of the stem cell populations were very similar, while their respective microenvironments strongly diverged. Our findings suggest that the microenvironmental specificity is a potential source for functional differences between highly similar stem cells located in the various tooth compartments and open new perspectives toward cell-based dental therapeutic approaches.

Keywords: Cell Biology; Omics; Stem Cells Research; Transcriptomics.