+ 2015 PRINT – Regenerative periodontolongy using tissue engineering

Periodontal tissues (cementum, periodontal ligament, alveolar bone, and gingiva), which insure teeth maintain and function are destructed during infectious pathologies named periodontitis. These pathologies affect more than 50% of adults in France and may be responsible (risk factors) of general health diseases (diabetes, brain stroke, cardiovascular diseases…). The destruction of the periodontal tissues lead to teeth mobility or lose, and indirectly to social disturbances for the patients. Even if the actual therapies manage to stop the tissue destruction, complete regeneration of the lost tissues around the dental root is not achieved. Nevertheless, it is now well-known that a complete regeneration cannot occur without the regeneration of the periodontal ligament on the dental root. 

In this context, the objective of the PRINT project is to elaborate an acellular multilayers scaffold of bioresorbable polymer able to stimulate the residual periodontal ligament cells of the patients and allow them to proliferate along the dental root. The purposed medical device will be a tridimensionnel nanofibered scaffold simulating the tissue structure  (extra-cellular matrix). The major advantage of this innovant medical device is that a lot of patients could be concerned by this therapy as a cell culture of autologous cells before implantation is not needed.

As the scaffold is not cellularized, it is a big challenge to manage the stimulation of the residual periodontal cells; bioactive functionnalization has to be performed to guide cells within the scaffold layers and allow for cell differentiation depending on the tissue to regenerate.