Autophagy's Role in Oral Tissue Regeneration: A Comprehensive Review

The oral cavity is a unique environment that requires continuous remodeling and regeneration, which is facilitated by the process of autophagy. This is particularly important as the oral cavity is home to a large number of bacterial colonizers and many oral diseases are caused by bacterial infections and subsequent immune reactions. Autophagy has been shown to play a crucial role in controlling the burden of infectious agents, regulating myeloid/lymphoid cell differentiation, limiting inflammatory pathologies, and coordinating multicellular immunity. Moreover, autophagy also plays a vital role in the repairment of damaged oral tissue. Therefore, it is clear that autophagy is closely associated with oral tissue regeneration. Despite the increasing number of studies exploring the role of autophagy in oral diseases and oral tissue regeneration, there has been a lack of systematic reviews on this topic.