Autophagy and Oral Tissue Regeneration: A Comprehensive Review

The oral cavity is a complex environment that requires constant remodeling and regeneration, making autophagy essential for oral tissue regeneration. Furthermore, the oral cavity harbors a vast array of bacterial colonizers, and many oral diseases are caused by bacterial infections and immune reactions. Autophagy has been shown to play a crucial role in limiting the burden of infectious agents, controlling inflammatory pathologies, regulating myeloid/lymphoid cell differentiation, and coordinating multicellular immunity, in addition to repairing damaged tissues. Despite numerous studies exploring the role of autophagy in oral diseases and regeneration, a systematic review of its role in oral tissue regeneration is lacking.

This review focuses on how autophagy contributes to stem cell regulation and oral tissue regeneration. It examines the role of autophagy in mitigating survival stress in oral stem cells and provides an overview of the autophagy machinery in eukaryotes. It also reviews how autophagy contributes to different components of oral tissue regeneration and discusses the molecular mechanisms involved in autophagy-regulated oral tissue regeneration. Additionally, it explores various methods of regulating autophagy, including small molecule drugs, biomaterials, exosomes/RNAs, or other specific treatments. Finally, the review considers new perspectives on autophagy manipulation and oral tissue regeneration. However, the precise mechanisms by which autophagy contributes to oral tissue regeneration remain unclear, and further mechanistic studies are necessary for therapeutic purposes. This review aims to provide new insights into human tissue regeneration and may be useful for further autophagy studies on oral tissue and other types of tissue regeneration.