Discrimination of Dental Pulp Stem Cell Regenerative Heterogeneity by Single-Cell Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract

Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) are increasingly being recognized as a viable cell source for regenerative medicine. However, significant heterogeneity in their ex vivo expansion capabilities is well established, which influences their regenerative and therapeutic potentials. As highly proliferative/multipotent DPSCs are minority subpopulations within dental pulp, the development of noninvasive strategies, capable of successfully discriminating between DPSC subpopulations with contrasting proliferative and differentiation capabilities in situ, would be immensely beneficial for the selective screening/isolation of superior quality DPSCs for in vitro assessment and therapy development. Conseque..