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

The oral cavity is a complex environment that necessitates constant remodeling and generation, which means that autophagy plays a critical role in oral tissue regeneration. Additionally, the oral cavity is home to a high number of bacterial colonizers, and many oral diseases are caused by bacterial infections and subsequent immune reactions. Numerous studies have shown that autophagy is involved in controlling infectious agents, limiting inflammatory pathologies, regulating myeloid/lymphoid cell differentiation, and coordinating multicellular immunity. Given the role of autophagy in repairing damaged tissue, it is evident that autophagy plays a significant role in oral tissue regeneration.

Despite numerous studies exploring the role of autophagy in oral diseases and oral tissue regeneration, no systematic reviews have examined the role of autophagy in oral tissue regeneration. In this review, we focus on how autophagy contributes to stem cell regulation and oral tissue regeneration. We discuss the role of autophagy in alleviating the survival stress of oral stem cells and provide an overview of the autophagy machinery in eukaryotes. We also examine how autophagy contributes to different components of oral tissue regeneration and introduce the molecular mechanisms involved in autophagy-regulated oral tissue regeneration. We also discuss how autophagy can be regulated by small molecule drugs, biomaterials, exosomes/RNAs, or other specific treatments.

Finally, we explore new perspectives on autophagy manipulation and oral tissue regeneration. However, it is still unclear how autophagy contributes to oral tissue regeneration, and mechanistic studies are still necessary to address many questions for therapeutic purposes. Our review may be beneficial for further autophagy studies on oral tissue and other tissue regeneration, providing new insights into human tissue regeneration.