Promotion of the Differentiation of Dental Pulp Stem Cells into Oligodendrocytes by Knockdown of Heat Shock Protein 27

Stem cell-based therapy has been evaluated in many different clinical trials for various diseases. This capability was applied in various neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, which is characterized by demyelination, axonal injury, and neuronal loss. Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) are mesenchymal stem cells from the oral cavity that have been studied with potential application for the regeneration of different tissues. Heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) regulates neurogenesis in the process of neural differentiation of placenta multipotent stem cells. Here, we hypothesize that HSP27 expression is also critical for the neural differentiation of DPSCs. An evaluation of the possible role of HSP27 in the differentiation of DPSCs was performed using gene knockdown and neural immunofluorescent staining. We found that HSP27 played a role in the differentiation of DPSCs and that knockdown of HSP27 in DPSCs rendered cells to oligodendrocyte progenitors; i.e., small hairpin specific for HSP27 DPSCs exhibited NG2-positive immunoreactivity and gave rise to oligodendrocytes or type-2 astrocytes. This neural differentiation of DPSCs may have clinical significance in the treatment of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. In conclusion, our data provide an example of the oligodendrocyte differentiation of a DPSC model, which may be applied in human regenerative medicine.