Usefulness of the newly developed artificial denture plaque for practical denture care training.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate whether the newly developed artificial dental plaque (A-DP) is useful as an educational tool for denture care of dental hygienist that compared it with conventional artificial dental plaque from the viewpoint of practical skills. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The 125 dental hygienist school students and 26 dental hygienists who had clinical experience were subjected a practical training of denture plaque control using the conventional denture plaque (C-DP) and the A-DP. The questionnaires based on the semantic differential method were used to survey whether the A-DP is similar to the real denture plaque (R-DP). Factor analysis by rotation of promax was carried out. RESULTS: In the results of the factor analysis, the two factors could be detected in students and three factors in dental hygienists. The total score of each denture plaque was calculated for each factor, and correlation coefficient was examined. There was significant correlation between the A-DP and the R-DP at the first factors, both students and dental hygienists. C-DP was not similar to R-DP in all factors. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggested that A-DP resembles R-DP better than C-DP. It was concluded that the A-DP was similar to the R-DP and could be a potent educational tool for practical denture care.

FGF-2 induces proliferation of human periodontal ligament cells and maintains differentiation potentials of STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) periodontal ligament cells.

The presence of human STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) periodontal ligament (PDL) cells has been reported, but obtaining a large amount of these cells is difficult. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the percentages of STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) cells in PDL cells and determine the effects of FGF-2 on the proliferation and multilineage differentiation potency of these cells. Human PDL (HPDL) cells were individually prepared from 15 extracted teeth. HPDL cells were cultured with or without FGF-2, and the percentages of STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) cells in each HPDL cell culture was examined using FACSAria™. The STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) cells were sorted with FACSAria™, and the mRNA expression and differentiation potency of the sorted cells were subsequently examined. The numbers of the STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) cells in the FGF-2 cultures were significantly higher than those cultured in the absence of FGF-2. The sorted STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) cells expressed mRNA of PDL markers and differentiated into adipocytes and osteoblast-like cells. The present study shows that FGF-2 augmented the proliferation of the STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) cells in the HPDL cultures whilst retaining adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation potentials. Thus, it may be useful to culture HPDL cells with FGF-2 for the application of the human STRO-1(+)/CD146(+) PDL cells in periodontal tissue regeneration.