Use of Biopolymers in Teeth Regeneration
Author(s): Kasturi Wankhede, Pavan Bajaj and Madhumita Choudhari*
Abstract
Tissue engineering is a promising way of regenerating lost or damaged tissue structures. Arranging an environment that is suitable to carry out regeneration is done through, scaffolds, stem cells, biopolymers, growth factors, scaffold free method, and signalling pathways. Taking into consideration the regeneration of dental tissues, nanostructured biopolymers, such as nanofibre, hydrogels, scaffolds, dendrimers, hydrogels, films, and nanobioceramic, such as hydroxyapatite, bio glass/ bioactive glass ceramic, etc., in the form of nanocrystals, rods and particles, paste; spheroids and cells sheets and so on, are being used to regenerate both soft as well as hard tissues of the human body at the same time. These materials have a striking resemblance with tooth tissues that are enamel, dentin, cementum and pulp. In general this article focuses on the biomaterials that can be utilized to regenerate a tooth outlining their features as well as future strategies that will be required.