The growth of the autotransplanted rat incisor tooth odontogenic organ.

74 rat incisor odontogenic organs were autotransplanted intradermally into the auricle. The animals were killed in groups of four up to eight months after grafting. Out of 61 grafts examined from the third week onward, 46% exhibited a typical odontogenic organ or a well differentiated tooth with pulp, vessels and nerve fibers. In 33% only scattered epithelial islands were formed. 21% of the grafts ended as osteodentin. Following the initial trauma leading to aseptic necrosis, the most primitive odontogenic organ cells survive to generate a new tooth. The grafted odontogenic organ resumes its existence as a complex structure which mobilizes its own vascular and nervous supply from the host dermis as evident from nerve fibers which penetrated the tooth pulp. Since all original nerve fibers of the graft had to be disconnected from their cell bodies, they obviously degenerated. Thus any nerve fiber observed in the regenerating tooth pulp had to be of dermal origin.