MicroRNA control of tooth formation and eruption

Tooth development involves epithelium invagination, mesenchyme aggregation, and epithelium-mesenchyme communication. A sophisticated signaling pathway network regulates the differentiation and crosstalk of multiple cell types in tooth germs and coordinates the broad spectrum of complex processes. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small non-coding RNA species that have been relatively well studied over the last few years, are now proposed as important regulators of tooth developmental signaling pathways as they repress cellular protein levels to provide a posttranscriptional gene regulation. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of miRNA characteristics in regulating morphogenesis, amelogenesis, dentin formation, and tooth eruption and how they interplay with the signaling molecules during these processes.