Augusta University, Dental College of Georgia, Department of Oral Biology and Diagnostic Sciences, Augusta, GA, USA.
Augusta University, Honors Program, College of Science and Mathematics, Augusta, GA, USA.
J Appl Oral Sci. 2023 Jun 23;31:e20230050. doi: 10.1590/1678-7757-2023-0050. eCollection 2023.
Inflammation is a necessary step in response to injuries, being vital in restoring homeostasis and facilitating tissue healing. Among the cells that play a crucial role in inflammatory responses, stromal cells, including fibroblasts, have an undeniable significance in fine-tuning the magnitude of mediators that directly affect hyper-inflammatory responses and tissue destruction. Fibroblasts, the dominant cells in the gingival connective tissue, are a very heterogeneous population of cells, and more recently they have been receiving well deserved attention as central players and often the 'principal dancers' of many pathological processes ranging from inflammation and fibrosis to altered immunity and cancer. The goal of the current investigation is to dive into the exact role of the stromal fibroblast and the responsible mechanistic factors involved in both regulation and dysregulation of the inflammatory responses. This article reviews the most recent literature on how fibroblasts, in their different activation states or subtypes, play a crucial role in contributing to inflammatory outcomes. We will focus on recent findings on inflammatory diseases. We will also provide connections regarding the stromal-immune relationship, which supports the idea of fibroblast coming out from the 'ensemble' of cell types to the protagonist role in immunometabolism and inflammaging. Additionally, we discuss the current advances in variation of fibroblast nomenclature and division into clusters with their own suggested function and particularities in gene expression. Here, we provide a perspective for the periodontal implications, discussing the fibroblast role in the infection-driven and inflammatory mediated diseases such as periodontitis.
炎症是对损伤的一种必要反应，对于恢复体内平衡和促进组织愈合至关重要。在参与炎症反应的细胞中，基质细胞（包括成纤维细胞）起着至关重要的作用，它们可以精细调节直接影响过度炎症反应和组织破坏的介质的大小。成纤维细胞是牙龈结缔组织中的主要细胞，是一个非常异质的细胞群体，最近它们作为许多病理过程的中心参与者，而且往往是许多病理过程的“主角”，受到了应有的关注，这些病理过程范围从炎症和纤维化到免疫改变和癌症。本研究的目的是深入探讨基质成纤维细胞的确切作用以及调节和失调炎症反应所涉及的机制因素。本文综述了关于成纤维细胞在不同激活状态或亚型下如何在促进炎症结果中发挥关键作用的最新文献。我们将重点关注最近关于炎症性疾病的发现。我们还将提供关于基质-免疫关系的联系，这支持了成纤维细胞从细胞类型的“整体”中脱颖而出，在免疫代谢和炎症老化中发挥主角作用的观点。此外，我们讨论了成纤维细胞命名法的最新变化以及根据其自身建议的功能和基因表达特点将其分为不同簇的情况。在这里，我们提供了一个关于牙周病的视角，讨论了成纤维细胞在感染驱动和炎症介导的疾病（如牙周炎）中的作用。
