Developing palatal bone using human mesenchymal stem cell and stem cells from exfoliated deciduous teeth cell sheets

Cleft palate is one of the most common craniofacial defects in newborn babies. The characteristics of this genetic disease produce soft and hard tissue defects on the lip and maxilla, which cause not only aesthetic but also functional problems with speech, eating, and breathing. Bone grafts using autologous cancellous bone have been a standard treatment to repair the hard tissue defect in cleft palates. However, such grafts do not fully integrate into host bone and undergo resorption. To overcome engraftment problems, it is common to engineer new tissues with a combination of multipotent cells and biomaterial frameworks. Here, we manufactured cell sheets for bone repair of cleft palates derived from two osteogenic cell sources, human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) and stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHEDs). Cell sheets made from hMSCs and SHEDs gave rise to in vitro calcification, which indicated the osteogenic potential of these cells. The cell sheets of hMSCs and SHEDs expressed the bone-specific osteogenic markers, osterix, osteocalcin, and osteopontin, following insertion into ex vivo-cultured embryonic palatal shelves and in ovo culture. In conclusion, we showed that osteogenic stem cell sheets have mineralization potential and might represent a new alternative to autologous bone transplantation in the reconstruction of cleft palates.