Abstract
Dental pulp plays an important role in tooth vitality. The pulp of deciduous tooth thus shows vigorous metabolism and repeated, vigorous cell regeneration and proliferation. Furthermore, natural, programmed cell death (apoptosis) frequently occurs as part of this cell regeneration and proliferation process. Apoptosis is defined as cell death governed by intracellular signals (active death of the cell triggered by changes in physiological or external conditions), and the birth of new cells occurs simultaneously with cell death. Apoptosis thus functions as a driving force for morphological and other changes in organisms, and is essential for phenomena such as ontogenetic processes or aging. However, In order to clarify the mechanism of apoptosis in the deciduous tooth pulp cells, we used SuperArray analysis and immunostaining to examine both deciduous and permanent tooth pulp cells. Of the 84 major genes involved in apoptosis, seven showed greater expression in the deciduous tooth pulp cells than in the permanent tooth pulp cells. Gene expression of TP53BP2, CRADD, BAK1, BIRC3, CASP8, CASP2 and TP73 in the deciduous tooth pulp were 16.1, 9.0, 8.5, 8.1, 5.9, 5.8 and 3.2 times greater than those in the permanent tooth pulp cells, respectively.
