Characterization of the protein phosphatase 1 interactome in human dental pulp

• Autor(a) principal: Freitas, Jorge Filipe Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/30680
• topic: Protein phosphatase 1 (PP1); Dental pulp; Regeneration; Cell signaling; Cell differentiation

Tooth’s decay is the most common infectious disease worldwide. It is a pathological condition characterized by the (partial or total) breakdown of teeth’s mineralized structures, due to the activity of cariogenic bacteria, potentially developing into the affection of pulp and periapical tissues. After damage, the dental pulp has a regenerative and reparative potential that is activated in response to microrganisms. Serine/threonine phosphatase 1 (PP1) seems to play a role in the differentiation of odontoblasts (pulp cells) and in angiogenesis, since its expression is upregulated in these cellular processes. PP1 has regenerative activity in the cardiac and nervous systems and has been identified in the tongue and in the dental pulp. With this work, we aim to characterize the PP1 isoforms expressed in dental pulp cells and to identify PP1γ interactors (RIPPOs), known to play a role in the modulation of the reparative/regenerative activity of dental pulp cells. We were able to show that PP1α, PP1β and PP1γ isoforms are expressed in dental pulp cells, while PP1γ2 expression was not observed. Also, the expression of RIPPOs involved in the signalling pathways that lead to regenerative and repair processes by dental pulp cells, like AKT, p38 MAPK and MAPK1 was confirmed. Our preliminary results suggest that PP1γ is important in modulating the activation of signalling pathway involved in tooth repair/regeneration.