DOI: https://doi.org/10.14710/actodont.31072

Dental Pulp Stem Cells: From Biological Promise to Translational Relevance, Therapeutic Applications, and System-Level Integration

Department of Biostructure and Animal Physiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences (UPWr), Poland

Received: 18 Jan 2026; Revised: 30 Jun 2026; Accepted: 23 Jul 2026; Available online: 4 Aug 2026; Published: 1 Dec 2026.
Open Access Copyright 2026 Anna Tomańska
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Abstract
Stem cells play a crucial role in regenerative medicine, contributing to tissue repair, maintaining homeostasis, and regulating the cellular environment. Among various sources, stem cells derived from human dental pulp are particularly promising due to their accessibility, ethical acceptability, and broad differentiation potential. They can be obtained from permanent and deciduous teeth, including tissues normally discarded, and preserved through cryopreservation, facilitating storage and clinical use. Dental pulp stem cells exhibit multilineage differentiation potential, giving rise to odontogenic, osteogenic, chondrogenic, adipogenic, and neurogenic cell lineages. This enables applications in dental tissue regeneration, nerve repair, blood vessel formation, and restoration of musculoskeletal and pancreatic tissues. Despite more than two decades of intensive research, routine clinical implementation remains limited by biological barriers, methodological heterogeneity, insufficient standardization, regulatory challenges, and incomplete GMP-oriented manufacturing and biobanking frameworks. Unlike previous reviews that primarily summarize the biological properties and regenerative applications of DPSCs, this review integrates biological evidence with translational, manufacturing, regulatory, biobanking, and system-level perspectives in order to identify the major barriers preventing routine clinical implementation. Furthermore, it highlights regenerative veterinary medicine within the One Health framework as a complementary translational platform that may facilitate technology maturation, improve manufacturing and regulatory readiness, and support broader implementation of DPSC-based therapies in human medicine. The major challenge is no longer the biological potential of DPSCs but the coordinated integration of  biological, technological, manufacturing, regulatory, and clinical processes required for successful clinical translation.
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Keywords: regenerative medicine; tissue regeneration; stem cells; therapy; dental pulp.

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Section: Reviews
Language : EN
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