Alterations in Deciduous Dental Pulp Cells Cultured with Serum-free Medium

Human mesenchymal stem cells are capable of differentiating into various cell types and are useful for applications in regenerative medicine. Previous studies have indicated that stem cells can be isolated from dental pulp, and dental pulp exfoliated from deciduous teeth has become a useful alternative for dental tissue engineering because of its higher proliferation rate. For clinical application, it is necessary to culture cells in vitro and to obtain sufficient numbers of cells as quickly as possible. Furthermore, it is necessary to confirm the change in cells cultured in vitro in order to ensure that they have suitable characteristics. In this study, to investigate the changes in human deciduous dental pulp cells cultured with serum-free media, we analyzed cell proliferation, cell morphology and gene expression changes by microarray analysis. We found a high cell proliferation rate in cells that were cultured in STK2 that is a serum-free medium, and cells tended to remain in close contact with one another in cell morphology. In addition, 3248 genes were expressed at >2-fold higher levels in dental pulp cells from deciduous teeth cultured with STK2 compared with medium containing fetal bovine serum for 3 days.