The Dental Pulp Stem/Progenitor Cells-Mediated Inflammatory-Regenerative Axis

Relying on their ease of isolation and remarkable tissue reparative/regenerative potential, dental pulp stem/progenitor cells (DPSCs) gained pronounced importance in the field of regenerative dentistry. Though inflammation is classically considered the reason for the damage of the dentin-pulpal complex, it continues to be an essential stage of any dentin-pulpal tissue repair or regeneration procedures. During their performance of a pulpal tissue repair or regeneration actions, DPSCs interact with their inflammatory microenvironment locally, possibly influencing their fate and the result of any DPSCs-mediated dentin-pulpal reparative/regenerative endeavor. Hence, this review aims at comprehensively elaborating on these complex interactions of DPSCs with their local pulpal inflammatory microenvironment, particularizing on the inflammatory aspects, affecting DPSCs' stemness, homing/migration, proliferation, differentiation as well as immunomodulation characteristics, and the potentially fundamental intracellular processes involved and their anticipated association with the noncanonical as well as canonical Wnt/β-Catenin intracellular signaling. Impact Statement This review particularizes on the current state of knowledge on the complex interrelation between dental pulp stem/progenitor cells and their pulpal inflammatory microenvironment; elaborates on inflammation aspects affecting their stemness, proliferation, migration/homing, differentiation and immunomodulation characteristics, and the fundamental intracellular processes involved and their anticipated association with the canonical and noncanonical Wnt pathways. All these aspects could significantly affect the dento-pulpal regenerative therapeutic approaches in vivo.