Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1α: A Potential Factor for the Enhancement of Osseointegration between Dental Implants and Tissue-Engineered Bone

• Main Authors: Duohong Zou, Siheng Zhu, Jian Zhou, Jiacai He, Yuanyin Wang, Zhihong Xie, Wei Han, Sulan You, Yuanliang Huang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2011-07-01
• Series: Dental Hypotheses
• Subjects: Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α; Angiogenesis; Osteogenesis; Osseointegration; Dental implant; Tissue-engineered bone.
• Online Access: http://www.dentalhypotheses.com/index.php/dhj/article/view/47
• ISSN: 2155-8213; 2155-8213

Introduction: Tissue-engineered bones are widely utilized to protect healthy tissue, reduce pain, and increase the success rate of dental implants. one of the most challenging obstacles lies in obtaining effective os-seointegration between dental implants and tissue-engineered structures. Deficiencies in vascularization, osteogenic factors, oxygen, and other nutrients inside the tissue-engineered bone during the early stages following implantation all inhibit effective osseointe-gration. Oxygen is required for aerobic metabolism in bone and blood vessel tissues, but oxygen levels inside tissue-engineered bone are not suf-ficient for cell proliferation. HIF-1α is a pivotal regulator of hypoxic and ischemic vascular responses, driving transcriptional activation of hundreds of genes involved in vascular reactivity, angiogenesis, arteriogenesis, and osteogenesis.The hypothesis: Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1α seems a potential factor for the enhancement of osseointegration between dental implants and tissue-engineered bone.Evaluation of the hypothesis: Enhancement of HIF-1α protein expression is recognized as the most promising approach for angiogenesis, because it can induce multiple angiogenic targets in a coordinated manner. Therefore, it will be a novel potential therapeutic methods targeting HIF-1α expression to enhance osseointegration be-tween dental implants and tissue-engineered bone.