Assessment of Dental Pulp Stem Cell (DPSC) Biomarkers Following Induction with Bone Morphogenic Protein 2 (BMP-2)

Introduction: Tissue regeneration and biomedical engineering are the goals of modern research that
have made tremendous strides in recent years. Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) have been
demonstrated to exhibit functional multipotency, differentiating into neurons, adipocytes, and other cell
types. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the ability of bone morphogenic protein (BMP-
2) to induce proliferation and differentiation of DPSC isolates into mineral forming bone cell precursor
lineages.
Study Design: This was a prospective study with the non-randomised experimental design.
Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas –
School of Dental Medicine between May 2017 and August 2018.
Methodology: Eight previously isolated dental pulp stem cell (DPSC) isolates were grown in culture
and treated with bone morphogenic protein (BMP-2) to evaluate any effects on growth, viability or
biomarker expression.
Results: BMP-2 induced significant changes in cellular growth among a subset of DPSC with slow
doubling times (sDT), which corresponded with similar increases in cellular viability. Also, BMP-2 was
sufficient to induce mRNA expression of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and other differentiation markers
among the sDT isolates – although no significant changes were observed among the DPSC isolates
with rapid or intermediate DTs (rDT, iDT).
Conclusions: This study may be the first to demonstrate not only the differential responsiveness of
DPSC isolates to BMP-2, but also to identify the MSC biomarkers that may affect initial DPSC
responsiveness to this stimulus. Although many studies have evaluated the role of the biomarkers
NANOG, Sox-2 and Oct-4 in DPSC isolate, no other study of DPSC multipotency has evaluated the
role of Nestin – which may be one of the key factors that potentiate or limits the responsiveness to
BMP-2 and osteogenic potential among DPSCs.