Effect of dental material HEMA monomer on human dental pulp cells

The purpose of this study was the cytotoxicity assay of dental material HEMA monomer to human dental pulp cell by MTT method and application of the flow cytometry to analyze effect of dental material on the cell cycle progression. The result of MTT method showed the inhibition of cell growth and 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of HEMA monomer in human dental pulp cell was 815.19 micrograms/ml. The result of the flow cytometry showed that there was a perturbation on human dental pulp cell cycle progression at the phases of Sand G2M with a dose-dependent manner. Biomaterials including dental materials should be safety to human bodies. Presently, many methods for testing the cytotoxicity of biomaterials were suggested. [1-2] MTT method is one of the cytotoxicity assay. It was provided by Monsmnn. [3] MTT is a kind of tetrazolium salt [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2yi)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide]. MTT method is the rapid, precision and quantitative colorimetric assay for cytotoxicity. It can be used to measure the proliferation, cytotoxicity or activation of living cells and is capable of handling large number of samples. Many investigators have used this advanced method.[4] Flow cytometry (FCM) analyzes the quantity of DNA bonded with dyes in each cell. It can provided the information of the cell cycle progression in detail. Currently, flow cytometry has been widely and successfully used in various fields of basic science research and clinical medicine. This FCM technology also can be used to study the cytotoxicity of dental materials and evaluate the biocompatibility of dental materials.[5-6] The contents of the study were (1) cytotoxicity assay on dental material HEMA monomer in human dental pulp cells by MTT method. (2) application flow cytometry to analyze the effect of dental material HEMA monomer on the cell cycle progression of the human dental pulp cells.