3D cellular visualization of intact mouse tooth using optical clearing without decalcification.
10.1038/s41368-019-0056-z
- Author:
Sujung HONG
1
;
Jingu LEE
1
;
Jin Man KIM
2
;
Sun-Young KIM
3
;
Hyung-Ryong KIM
4
;
Pilhan KIM
5
Author Information
1. Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Republic of Korea.
2. Department of Dentistry, CHA Bundang Medical Center, CHA University, Seongnam, Republic of Korea.
3. Department of Conservative Dentistry and Dental Research Institute, Seoul National University School of Dentistry, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Republic of Korea.
4. College of Dentistry, Institute of Tissue Regeneration Engineering (ITREN), Dankook University, Cheonan, Republic of Korea. hrkimdp@gmail.com.
5. Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Republic of Korea. pilhan.kim@kaist.ac.kr.
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- From:
International Journal of Oral Science
2019;11(3):25-25
- CountryChina
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Dental pulp is composed of nerves, blood vessels, and various types of cells and surrounded by a thick and hard enamel-dentin matrix. Due to its importance in the maintenance of tooth vitality, there have been intensive efforts to analyze the complex cellular-level organization of the dental pulp in teeth. Although conventional histologic analysis has provided microscopic images of the dental pulp, 3-dimensional (3D) cellular-level visualization of the whole dental pulp in an intact tooth has remained a technically challenging task. This is mainly due to the inevitable disruption and loss of microscopic structural features during the process of mechanical sectioning required for the preparation of the tooth sample for histological observation. To accomplish 3D microscopic observation of thick intact tissue, various optical clearing techniques have been developed mostly for soft tissue, and their application for hard tissues such as bone and teeth has only recently started to be investigated. In this work, we established a simple and rapid optical clearing technique for intact mouse teeth without the time-consuming process of decalcification. We achieved 3D cellular-level visualization of the microvasculature and various immune cell distributions in the whole dental pulp of mouse teeth under normal and pathologic conditions. This technique could be used to enable diverse research methods on tooth development and regeneration by providing 3D visualization of various pulpal cells in intact mouse teeth.
