ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Insufficient amount of periodontal soft tissue always brings red-and-white aesthetic problems of natural teeth and restorations, leads to gingivitis and peri-implant inflammation. Cell scaffold complexes with different cell and material combinations can promote periodontal soft tissue regeneration, which is expected to replace autogenous grafts. OBJECTIVE: To review the research progress and breakthrough in the application of autologous or allogeneic fibroblasts, keratinocytes, and mesenchymal stem cells in periodontal soft tissue increment. METHODS: Literature retrieval was conducted in PubMed, CNKI, Wanfang, Sciencedirect, and Medline databases. The key words were “gingival recession, soft tissue augmentation, root coverage, subepithelial connective graft” in English and Chinese. Abstracts were read; conclusions were preliminarily screened; and studies and experiments unrelated to the topic of this paper were excluded. Finally, 61 articles were included for result analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Mesenchymal stem cells show great potential in gingival papilla increment. Transplanting only fibroblasts or keratinocytes combined with collagen, chitosan, acellular dermal matrix and other scaffolds in soft tissue could not achieve the expected keratinized gingival increment. Although the combination of two kinds of cells and collagen matrix showed more optimistic results and the current scaffold materials had good plasticity and biocompatibility, co-culture of fibroblasts and keratinocytes is time-consuming and expensive, and the conformation of scaffold material is relatively single. How to solve these problems will be a long process.