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Updated: Aug 17, 2026
Establishing Organoids from Human Tooth as a Powerful Tool Toward Mechanistic Research and Regenerative Therapy
Published on: April 13, 2022
Characterization of human primary enamel organ epithelial cells in vitro
P K DenBesten1, D Machule, Y Zhang
1University of California at San Francisco, 94143-0640, USA. pkdb@itsa.ucsf.edu
Unlabelled:
Tooth enamel is formed by ameloblasts, which are derived from the epithelial cells of the enamel organ.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to grow human ameloblast-like epithelial cells in culture.
Design:
Human fetal tooth organs were isolated, and the cells were separated by digestion in collagenase/dispase. The cells were cultured in KGM-2 media with and without serum and at different calcium concentrations. The expression of enamel matrix proteins was analyzed by RT-PCR and cytokeratin 14 was detected by immunohistochemistry. The cells were further characterized by osteogenesis/odontogenesis-related DNA array.
Results:
Cells isolated from the tooth organs grown in KGM-2 media containing 2-10% serum, were mixture of cobblestone and spindle shaped cells. Culturing these cells in KGM-2 with 0.05 mM calcium was selective for cobblestone ameloblasts-like cells (CAB), which were immunopositive for cytokeratin 14. Amelogenin, ameloblastin, enamelin, MMP-20 and KLK-4 were detected in CAB cells by RT-PCR. Osteogenesis SuperArray analyses could not detect the presence of typical molecules related to mesenchymal odontoblast or osteoblast lineage cells in these cultures.
Conclusions:
These studies showed that cobblestone-shaped ameloblast-like cells are selected from the tooth organ cells, by culture in KGM-2 media with 0.05 mM calcium.
