Emerging silicate biomaterials in oral medicine

Oral diseases are one of global health problem with the prevalence of more than 3 billion people worldwide, which represents heavy medical burden and severely affect life quality of patients. Currently, clinical therapeutic approaches mainly adopt conservative treatments by surgical intervention supplemented with material implantation. However, the multi-bacterial colonization, and excessive host immune-inflammatory response features of oral diseases results in delayed tissue regeneration and unsatisfied functional rehabilitation. Silicate biomaterials have tunable physiochemical properties, multi-bioactivities and highly biosafety that represents an emerging candidate to regenerative approaches in oral medicine. Although silicate biomaterials have been successfully used for dental applications for few decades, while they are mainly used as bone grafts and silicate-based material sealants. Recently, the role of silicate biomaterials in anti-bacterial, immunomodulation and neuro-angiogenesis have been revealed, and the application strategies of silicate biomaterials have expanded towards minimally invasive and custom manner such as injectable hydrogel, microneedles, membrane patch and 3D printed scaffolds. Therefore, this review shows a comprehensive overview of recent advancements of silicate biomaterials for the treatment of oral diseases. It begins with introducing the typical silicate biomaterials and their bioactivities, followed by the most representative silicate-based scaffolds used in dentistry. Subsequently, the recent progresses of silicate biomaterials in regenerating periodontal tissues, dentin-pulp complex, maxillofacial bone and oral soft tissues are systematically reviewed. Finally, the clinical application and future perspectives are proposed. It is anticipated that this review may pave the way of clinical application of novel silicate biomaterials to improving therapeutic outcomes of oral diseases in the future.