The osteonectin is a sort of glycoprotein which is secreted in human tissues. The osteonectin is generally detected in number of normal or neoplastic human tissues in vivo, but hasn`t been studied the role of osteonectin in developing human teeth and odontogenic tumors. We evaluated degree of the expression of osteonectin immunohistochemically in 20 cases of developing tooth germ which growth from fetus 5 to 38 weeks, and total 51 odontogenic tumors whitch has taken from routine biopsy, such as 10 ameloblastomas, 5 cases of adenomatoid odontogenic tumors and odontomas and odontogenic fibromas, 4 cases of cementomas and calcifying epithelial odontogenic cyst and odontogenic keratocyst and dentigerous cysts and periapical cysts, and 3 cases of ameloblastic fibromas and myxomas. The results were as follows: 1. The osteonectin on the bud stage of tooth germ was strongly expressed in the epithelial dental lamina and in the outer dental epithelium on the early bell stage, and also strongly expressed in the inner dental epithelium on the late bell stage of tooth germs. 2. In ameloblastoma, the osteonectin was strongly expressed in the epithelial tumor component and especially in the acanthomatous types. 3. In both of calcifying epithelial odontogenic tumor and adenomatoid odontogenic tumors, the osteonectin was moderately expressed on the duct like spindle cells and epithelial tumor cells around calcification areas. 4. In odontogenic tumors originated from epithelial-mesenchymal tissues, the osteonectin was moderately expressed on the epithelial tumor components and in odontogenic cysts, it was expressed in ghost cells and calcification areas only. These were summaried the osteonectin may be strongly related to the developing tooth germ and odontogenic tumors and could be regulated hard tissue of human tooth in morphogenesis and involved with calcification mechanism in development odontogenic tumors.
Ameloblastoma ; Ameloblasts ; Biopsy ; Cementoma ; Dentigerous Cyst ; Epithelium ; Fetus ; Fibroma ; Glycoproteins ; Humans ; Morphogenesis ; Myxoma ; Odontogenic Cysts ; Odontogenic Tumors* ; Odontoma ; Osteonectin* ; Radicular Cyst ; Tooth Germ* ; Tooth*