Evaluation of the effect of chitosan and chitosannanoparticle on osteo/odontogenic di̇fferentiation ofdental pulp stem cells

The aim of this study is to compare the osteogenic/odontogenic differentiation capacities of chitosan and its nanoparticle form on permanent dental pulp stem cells. In our study, pulp stem cells were isolated from wisdom teeth and flow cytometry analysis was performed. Chitosan nanoparticle was produced by ionotropic gelation method. The cytotoxicity of chitosan and its nanoparticle form on dental pulp stem cells at 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5 mg/mL was investigated using the CCK-8 kit. To examine the osteogenic differentiation capacity, osteogenic differentiation medium was applied for 14 days. Differentiation capacities were evaluated by Alizarin Red staining. Statistical data were evaluated using IBM SPSS V23 program, Shapiro-Wilk and Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, One-Way Analysis of Variance, Kruskal Wallis Test, Dunn Test. Evaluation of the results was made at p<0.05 significance level. There was no statistically significant difference between the cytotoxicity data of the groups according to the CCK-8 results (p=0.842). Although the osteogenic differentiation values of chitosan and chitosan nanoparticle groups, which were applied osteogenic differentiation medium, were higher than the control group, there was no statistical difference (p=0.553). Statistically significant osteogenic differentiation was observed in chitosan and chitosan nanoparticle groups treated with media without osteogenic differentiation elements compared to negative control and DMEM groups (p<0.001). Chitosan and Chitosan Nanoparticle exhibited biocompatible property and promoted osteogenic differentiation. These results should be supported by studies with long follow-up and variable parameters. Keywords: Chitosan, chitosan nanoparticle, cytotoxicity, osteogenic differentiation, dental pulp stem cell