Mesenchymal stem cells currently play an important role in the tissue engineering field in developing new regenerative approaches. The oral cavity is a rich source of mesenchymal stem cells, and introducing the use of dental stem cells, characterized by a multilineage differentiation potential, immunomodulatory activity and repair capacity, offers a good perspective for clinical dentistry. Human periapical cyst mesenchymal stem cells (hPCy-MSCs) represent a new category of dental stem cells, being collected from pathological tissue and exhibiting MSCs-like properties. As studies have described, these new identified cells possess the same characteristics as those described in MSCs, exhibiting plasticity, a high proliferation rate and the potential to differentiate into osteogenic, adipogenic and neural lineages. Reusing the biological tissue that is considered pathologic offers a new perspective for the development of further clinical applications. The identification and characterization of MSCs in the human periapical cysts allows for a better understanding of the molecular interactions, the potential healing capacity and the mechanisms of inducing the local osteogenic process, integrated in the microenvironment. Although their involvement in regenerative medicine research is recent, they exhibit important properties that refer them for the development of clinical applications in dentistry.
Keywords: dental mesenchymal stem cells; hPCy-MSCs; regenerative dentistry; tissue engineering.