The tick tock of odontogenesis.

Although a big deal of dental research is being focused to the understanding of early stages of tooth development, a huge gap exist on our knowledge on how the dental hard tissues are formed and how this process is controlled daily in order to produce very complex and diverse tooth shapes adapted for specific functions. Emerging evidence suggests that clock genes, a family of genes that controls circadian functions within our bodies, regulate also dental mineralized tissues formation. Enamel formation, for example, is subjected to rhythmical molecular signals that occur on short (24h) periods and control the secretion and maturation of the enamel matrix. Accordingly, gene expression and ameloblast functions are also tightly modulated in regular daily intervals. This review summarizes the current knowledge on the circadian controls of dental mineralized tissues development with a special emphasis on amelogenesis.