Autophagy and Oral Tissue Regeneration: A Comprehensive Review

The oral cavity is a unique environment that requires continuous remodeling and regeneration, and autophagy plays a critical role in oral tissue regeneration. Furthermore, the oral cavity is home to a large number of bacterial colonizers, and many oral diseases are caused by bacterial infection and subsequent immune response. Autophagy is known to be involved in controlling the burden of infectious agents, limiting inflammatory pathologies, regulating myeloid/lymphoid cell differentiation, and coordinating multicellular immunity. Thus, autophagy is closely associated with oral tissue regeneration due to its role in repairing damaged tissue and controlling infections.

While several studies have explored the role of autophagy in oral diseases and oral tissue regeneration, there has been no systematic review of the subject. In this review, we focus on the contribution of autophagy 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 autophagy machinery in eukaryotes. We also review how autophagy contributes to different components of oral tissue regeneration and introduce the molecular mechanisms involved in autophagy-regulated oral tissue regeneration. Additionally, we discuss how autophagy can be regulated by small molecule drugs, biomaterials, exosomes/RNAs, or other specific treatments.

Finally, we provide 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 necessary to address many questions for therapeutic purposes. Our review may be helpful for further studies on autophagy in oral tissue and other tissue regeneration, and we hope to provide new insights into human tissue regeneration.