Enamel regeneration - current progress and challenges.

Dental Enamel is the outermost covering of teeth. It is hardest mineralized tissue present in the human body. Enamel faces the challenge of maintaining its integrity in a constant demineralization and remineralization within the oral environment and it is vulnerable to wear, damage, and decay. It cannot regenerate itself, because it is formed by a layer of cells that are lost after the tooth eruption. Conventional treatment relies on synthetic materials to restore lost enamel that cannot mimic natural enamel. With advances in material science and understanding of basic principles of organic matrix mediated mineralization paves a way for formation of synthetic enamel. The knowledge of enamel formation and understanding of protein interactions and their gene products function along with the isolation of postnatal stem cells from various sources in the oral cavity, and the development of smart materials for cell and growth factor delivery, makes possibility for biological based enamel regeneration. This article will review the recent endeavor on biomimetic synthesis and cell based strategies for enamel regeneration.