A Microfluidic Organ-On-A-Chip: Into the Next Decade of Bone Tissue Engineering Applied in Dentistry

Abstract

A comprehensive understanding of the complex physiological and pathological processes associated with alveolar bones, their responses to different therapeutics strategies, and cell interactions with biomaterial becomes necessary in precisely treating patients with severe progressive periodontitis, as a bone-related issue in dentistry. However, existing monolayer cell culture or pre-clinical models have been unable to mimic the complex physiological, pathological and regeneration processes in the bone microenvironment in response to different therapeutic strategies. In this point, ‘organ-on-a-chip’ (OOAC) technology, specifically ‘alveolar-bone-on-a-chip’, is expected to resolve the problems by better imitating infection site microenvironment and microphysiology within the oral tissues. The OOAC technology is assessed in this study toward better approaches in disease modeling and better therapeutics strategy for bone tissue engineering applied in dentistry.

Plain Language Summary

Bone-related issues have been widely focused on in the field of dentistry due to oral cancers, trauma, injuries and the high incidence of periodontitis (a serious gum infection which causes bone damage and tooth loss). To overcome this condition, several strategies have been developed involving tissue engineering approaches and drug discovery. To provide better drugs for periodontitis, it is important to study the ways in which tissues and cells work together as well as the disease mechanisms, and cell interactions with drugs, other therapeutics agents, or biomaterials. For this, cell studies are needed, but the current research cannot replicate the disease environment and therefore cannot show exactly what happens in real sick areas. In this review, a new idea is explored called organ-on-a-chip technology, where scientists make small models that work like our organs, which could help them find better ways to treat dental and bone problems.

Tweetable abstract

Monolayer cell cultures and animal studies cannot reflect real time microenvironment of the diseased sites. A microfluidic organ-on-a-chip technology relevant to dental and bone tissue engineering is a must to resolve the challenges for better therapeutics strategy.

Graphical abstract

Keywords:

• alveolar bone
• Bone disease modeling
• dentistry
• organ-on-a-chip
• periodontitis
• tissue engineering

Author contributions

MH Syahruddin: conceptualization; investigation; project administration; resources; formal analysis; data curation; writing – original draft preparation. ID Ana: conceptualization; resources; funding acquisition; methodology; formal analysis; visualization; supervision; validation; writing – substantial part of original draft, review and editing. R Anggraeni: resources, methodology; data curation; supervision; validation; writing – editing.

Acknowledgments

Authors thank the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) of the Republic of Indonesia for the grant “Pendidikan Magister Menuju Doktor untuk Sarjana Unggul” (PMDSU) with the contract no. 089/E5/PG.02.00.PT/2022; 1986/UN1/DITLIT/Dit-Lit/PT.01.03/2022. This publication is a conceptual framework for the series of research supported by the grant and a part of the PhD thesis of Muhammad Hidayat Syahruddin. Licensed Biorender application was used to draw some figures.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (KEMENDIKBUDRISTEK) of the Republic of Indonesia through Pendidikan Magister Menuju Doktor untuk Sarjana Unggul (PMDSU) (contract no. 089/E5/PG.02.00.PT/2022; 1986/UN1/DITLIT/Dit-Lit/PT.01.03/2022). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.