Investigating the Differential Effects and the Mechanisms of Flavonols on Osteogenic Differentiation of Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells

Flavonols are a kind of flavonoids which are the pigments of plants. Flavonols have lots of biological activities including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, promoting osteogenesis, anti-osteoclastogenesis, etc. It was known that stem cells played an important role in osteogenesis. Stem cells have great potential in wound healing due to their self-renewal and multilineage differentiation potential. In our previous study, we had found the particular flavonols with osteogenic activitity for human dental pulp stem cells (DPSC). The osteogenic activity of flavonols may be helpful in alveolar bone regeneration clinically. This study is devoted to clearly understand the molecular mechanism of flavonol-induced osteogenesis in DPSCs. These include the effects of these compounds on cell physiology, intracellular signal transduction, the regulation of osteogenesis-related genes/proteins and also the calcium deposition. This study is beneficial in drug development for DPSC-based bone regeneration.