Autophagy and Oral Tissue Regeneration: A Comprehensive Review

The oral cavity is a dynamic environment that requires constant remodeling and regeneration, and autophagy plays a crucial role in this process. Furthermore, the oral cavity is home to a vast array of bacterial colonizers, and autophagy is involved in controlling infectious agents, limiting inflammatory pathologies, and regulating immune cell differentiation. Autophagy also plays a critical role in repairing damaged tissues, making it closely associated with oral tissue regeneration.

While several studies have investigated the role of autophagy in oral diseases and tissue regeneration, there is a lack of systematic reviews on the topic. This review aims to fill this gap by focusing on how autophagy contributes to stem cell regulation and oral tissue regeneration. We discuss how autophagy alleviates survival stress in oral stem cells and provide an overview of autophagy machinery in eukaryotes. We also examine how autophagy contributes to the different components of oral tissue regeneration, including the molecular mechanisms involved in autophagy-regulated oral tissue regeneration.

Furthermore, we discuss how autophagy can be regulated by small molecule drugs, biomaterials, exosomes/RNAs, and other specific treatments. Finally, we provide new perspectives on autophagy manipulation and oral tissue regeneration, highlighting the need for further mechanistic studies to address many questions for therapeutic purposes.

Overall, this review provides valuable insights into the role of autophagy in oral tissue regeneration and highlights its potential as a therapeutic target. We hope that our findings will inspire further research in this area and contribute to the development of new therapies for tissue regeneration.