Mature dendritic cells (DCs) in inflamed tissues may promote inflammation but the status of DCs in pulpitis is not known. We hypothesized that DC maturation would correlate with carious lesion depth and that CD4+ cells would be found in association with mature DCs. Pulps were collected from teeth exhibiting: (I) no caries (n=9), (II) shallow dentinal caries (n=5), and (III) deep caries (n=9). Pulpal tissues were cryo-sectioned and positive cells were examined with immunohistochemistry, Mature DCs (CD83+) were almost exclusively restricted to pulps from deep caries. Furthermore, CD209+ DCs in deep caries were elevated over other groups and CD209+ cells about doubled the CD83+ cells suggesting that immature DCs had accumulated and were available for terminal maturation. CD4+ cells were found associated with both mature DCs and macrophages in pulps from deep caries suggesting that T cells may be a source of pro-inflammatory cytokines at this inflamed site. This document was created in Microsoft Word 2000.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1988 |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| Creators | Harmon, Melissa A. |
| Publisher | VCU Scholars Compass |
| Source Sets | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | © The Author |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds