Chongqing Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases and Biomedical Sciences, Stomatological Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine, Molecular Oncology Laboratory, The University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA.
J Cell Mol Med. 2021 Mar;25(5):2666-2678. doi: 10.1111/jcmm.16293. Epub 2021 Feb 18.
Teeth arise from the tooth germ through sequential and reciprocal interactions between immature epithelium and mesenchyme during development. However, the detailed mechanism underlying tooth development from tooth germ mesenchymal cells (TGMCs) remains to be fully understood. Here, we investigate the role of Wnt/β-catenin signalling in BMP9-induced osteogenic/odontogenic differentiation of TGMCs. We first established the reversibly immortalized TGMCs (iTGMCs) derived from young mouse mandibular molar tooth germs using a retroviral vector expressing SV40 T antigen flanked with the FRT sites. We demonstrated that BMP9 effectively induced expression of osteogenic markers alkaline phosphatase, collagen A1 and osteocalcin in iTGMCs, as well as in vitro matrix mineralization, which could be remarkably blunted by knocking down β-catenin expression. In vivo implantation assay revealed that while BMP9-stimulated iTGMCs induced robust formation of ectopic bone, knocking down β-catenin expression in iTGMCs remarkably diminished BMP9-initiated osteogenic/odontogenic differentiation potential of these cells. Taken together, these discoveries strongly demonstrate that reversibly immortalized iTGMCs retained osteogenic/odontogenic ability upon BMP9 stimulation, but this process required the participation of canonical Wnt signalling both in vitro and in vivo. Therefore, BMP9 has a potential to be applied as an efficacious bio-factor in osteo/odontogenic regeneration and tooth engineering. Furthermore, the iTGMCs may serve as an important resource for translational studies in tooth tissue engineering.
牙齿通过在发育过程中未成熟的上皮组织和间充质之间的顺序和相互作用从牙原基中产生。然而,牙原基间充质细胞(TGMCs)发育为牙齿的详细机制仍有待充分了解。在这里,我们研究了 Wnt/β-连环蛋白信号在 BMP9 诱导的 TGMCs 成骨/成牙分化中的作用。我们首先使用表达 SV40 T 抗原的逆转录病毒载体(两侧带有 FRT 位点),从小鼠下颌磨牙牙原基中建立了可逆转永生化的 TGMCs(iTGMCs)。我们证明 BMP9 可有效诱导 iTGMCs 中碱性磷酸酶、胶原 A1 和骨钙素等成骨标志物的表达,以及体外基质矿化,而β-连环蛋白表达的敲低可显著减弱这些作用。体内植入实验表明,虽然 BMP9 刺激的 iTGMCs 可诱导异位骨的强烈形成,但在 iTGMCs 中敲低β-连环蛋白表达可显著降低这些细胞中 BMP9 起始的成骨/成牙分化潜能。总之,这些发现有力地证明了可逆转永生化的 iTGMCs 在 BMP9 刺激下保留了成骨/成牙能力,但这个过程在体外和体内都需要经典 Wnt 信号的参与。因此,BMP9 有可能作为一种有效的生物因子应用于骨/牙再生和牙齿工程。此外,iTGMCs 可能成为牙齿组织工程转化研究的重要资源。