Dental stem cell banking: a promising future for regenerative medicine applications

Dental stem cells originating from different oral tissues in and around dental structures have recently gained attention as a potential alternative for regenerative medicine applications. To date, many dental stem cells are identified specific to the tissue from which they originate. They exhibit many valuable advantages including high proliferation ability, self-renewal capacity, and multiple differentiation potentials that make them an important candidate for clinical applications, especially in treating degenerative and inflammatory diseases. The fact that they can be easily obtained from an individual’s waste tooth without any ethical concern provides them an excellent opportunity for autologous treatment with a low risk of immune rejection. Nowadays, the storage of autologous dental stem cells isolated from wisdom teeth or healthy extracted teeth in biobanks without ethical concerns has become a very important approach for the regeneration of damaged and diseased tissue and for the treatment of life-threatening diseases that may be encountered in the future life of the donor. This study provides a comprehensive overview of dental stem cells, recent advances in their clinical use, long-term preservation processes, and the latest advances in Dental Stem Cell Banking.