Dental pulp cells provide support for nerve cells lost in Parkinson’s disease, according to an article in the May 1 issue of the European Journal of Neuroscience.
These cells, which are derived from the inside of teeth, someday might be used to treat people who have Parkinson’s disease, say researchers from Michigan and Sweden.
In the study, researchers tested whether the readily available tooth cells could provide neurotrophic factors—which promote nerve cell survival—to support dying nerve cells and replace dead cells.
First, researchers extracted a tooth and drew cells from the center of the tooth. Next, they cultured the cells in a Petri dish to increase the number of cells. The resulting cell mixture contained neuronal precursor cells and cells that produce beneficial neurotrophic factors.
Previous studies have used other sources for stem cells; in animal and human studies, most of those cells died when grafted into the brain. The lead author of the current study, Dr. Christopher Nosrat, University of Michigan School of Dentistry, Ann Arbor, said he believes that cells drawn from dental pulp are more robust because they also produce neurotrophic factors.
Researchers hope that by focusing the treatment more specifically on affected parts of the brain and by refining the codelivery of neurotrophic factors, they eventually can treat people with Parkinson’s disease successfully.
