A microfluidic organ-on-a-chip: into the next decade of bone tissue engineering applied in dentistry

A comprehensive understanding of the complex physiological and pathological processes associated with alveolar bones, their responses to different therapeutics strategies, and cell interactions with biomaterial becomes necessary in precisely treating patients with severe progressive periodontitis, as a bone-related issue in dentistry. However, existing monolayer cell culture or pre-clinical models have been unable to mimic the complex physiological, pathological and regeneration processes in the bone microenvironment in response to different therapeutic strategies. In this point, ‘organ-on-a-chip' (OOAC) technology, specifically ‘alveolar-bone-on-a-chip', is expected to resolve the problems by better imitating infection site microenvironment and microphysiology within the oral tissues. The OOAC technology is assessed in this study toward better approaches in disease modeling and better therapeutics strategy for bone tissue engineering applied in dentistry. Plain language summary Bone-related issues have been widely focused on in the field of dentistry due to oral cancers, trauma, injuries and the high incidence of periodontitis (a serious gum infection which causes bone damage and tooth loss). To overcome this condition, several strategies have been developed involving tissue engineering approaches and drug discovery. To provide better drugs for periodontitis, it is important to study the ways in which tissues and cells work together as well as the disease mechanisms, and cell interactions with drugs, other therapeutics agents, or biomaterials. For this, cell studies are needed, but the current research cannot replicate the disease environment and therefore cannot show exactly what happens in real sick areas. In this review, a new idea is explored called organ-on-a-chip technology, where scientists make small models that work like our organs, which could help them find better ways to treat dental and bone problems. © 2023 The Authors.