Human exfoliated deciduous teeth have been considered to be a promising source for regenerative
therapy because they contain unique postnatal stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED) with self-renewal capacity, multipotency and immunomodulatory function. However preservation technique of deciduous teeth has not been developed. This study aimed to evaluate that cryopreserved dental pulp tissues of human exfoliated deciduous teeth is a retrievable and practical SHED source for cell-based
therapy. SHED isolated from the cryopreserved deciduous pulp tissues for over 2 years (25-30 months) (SHED-Cryo) owned similar stem cell properties including clonogenicity, self-renew, stem cell marker expression, multipotency, in vivo tissue regenerative capacity and in vitro immunomodulatory function to SHED isolated from the fresh tissues (SHED-Fresh). To examine the therapeutic efficacy of SHED-Cryo on
immune diseases, SHED-Cryo were intravenously transplanted into
systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) model MRL/lpr mice. Systemic SHED-Cryo-
transplantation improved SLE-like disorders including short lifespan, elevated
autoantibody levels and
nephritis-like renal dysfunction. SHED-Cryo amended increased
interleukin 17-secreting helper T cells in MRL/lpr mice systemically and locally. SHED-Cryo-
transplantation was also able to recover
osteoporosis bone reduction in long bones of MRL/lpr mice. Furthermore, SHED-Cryo-mediated tissue engineering induced bone regeneration in critical calvarial bone-defect sites of immunocompromised mice. The therapeutic efficacy of SHED-Cryo
transplantation on immune and skeletal disorders was similar to that of SHED-Fresh. These data suggest that cryopreservation of dental pulp tissues of deciduous teeth provide a suitable and desirable approach for stem cell-based immune
therapy and tissue engineering in regenerative medicine.