Autophagy and Oral Tissue Regeneration: A Comprehensive Review

The oral cavity is a highly dynamic environment that requires continuous remodeling and regeneration, making autophagy a crucial process in oral tissue regeneration. Moreover, the oral cavity is home to a vast number of bacterial colonizers, and many oral diseases result from bacterial infections and subsequent immune reactions. Autophagy plays a critical role in controlling infectious agents, limiting inflammatory pathologies, regulating cell differentiation, and coordinating multicellular immunity. Therefore, it is closely associated with oral tissue regeneration and repair.

While several studies have explored the contribution of autophagy to oral diseases and tissue regeneration, there has been no systematic review of its role in oral tissue regeneration. This review focuses 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 eukaryotic cells. Additionally, we review how autophagy contributes to different components of oral tissue regeneration, introducing 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, or other specific treatments to enhance oral tissue regeneration. Finally, we explore new perspectives on autophagy manipulation and oral tissue regeneration. However, there is still much to learn about how autophagy contributes to oral tissue regeneration, and mechanistic studies are necessary for therapeutic purposes. Our review provides valuable insights for future autophagy studies on oral tissue and other tissue regeneration, ultimately leading to new therapeutic approaches to human tissue regeneration.