Globoside accelerates the differentiation of dental epithelial cells into ameloblasts

Abstract

A fatty substance called globoside triggers the developing tooth to create the cells that deposit dental enamel. Takashi Nakamura from the Tohoku University Graduate School of Dentistry, Sendai, Japan, and colleagues looked for the expression of globoside in teeth from three-day-old mouse pups and showed that it was highly active in cells known as ameloblasts, which secrete the hard enamel that coats the tooth crown. Adding globoside to cultured rat dental cells led to an increase in proteins involved in making enamel. The substance also stimulated the expression of receptors that drive ameloblast formation, while repressing others that help keep dental cells in an undifferentiated state. The findings reveal a novel developmental pathway that could help inform future treatments of enamel defects.

Keywords

ameloblast / differentiation / enamel matrix / epiprofin / glycosphingolipids / tooth development

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