Engineering Dental Tissues Using Biomaterials with Piezoelectric Effect: Current Progress and Future Perspectives

Dental caries and traumatic injuries to teeth may cause irreversible inflammation and eventual death of the dental pulp. Nevertheless, predictably, repair and regeneration of the dentin-pulp complex remain a formidable challenge. In recent years, smart multifunctional materials with antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and pro-regenerative properties have emerged as promising approaches to meet this critical clinical need. As a unique class of smart materials, piezoelectric materials have an unprecedented advantage over other stimuli-responsive materials due to their inherent capability to generate electric charges, which have been shown to facilitate both antimicrobial action and tissue regeneration. Nonetheless, studies on piezoelectric biomaterials in the repair and regeneration of the dentin-pulp complex remain limited. In this review, we summarize the biomedical applications of piezoelectric biomaterials in dental applications and elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms contributing to the biological effect of piezoelectricity. Moreover, we highlight how this state-of-the-art can be further exploited in the future for dental tissue engineering.