Analysis of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in dentine: useful for age estimation?

Ageing of the human organism results in the accumulation of modified molecules. Some of these molecular changes may be used for age estimation, as already shown for aspartic acid racemization (AAR). Another example for an accumulation of damaged molecules is advanced glycation end products (AGEs). We examined, (1) if the correlation between the concentration of AGEs (pentosidine) in root dentine and age is close enough to be used as basis for age estimation, and (2) if the combined analysis of AGEs and AAR in dentine may be a useful approach to rule out or to detect relevant effects of confounding factors in age estimation. We determined the pentosidine content of root dentine samples of 64 healthy teeth as well as in carious, "pink", diabetic and heated teeth, and in teeth after different storage times. In 23 teeth, the extent of aspartic acid racemization (AAR) was determined in parallel. We observed a close relationship between the concentration of pentosidine in dentine and chronological age (r = 0.94) in healthy teeth. The analysis of pentosidine in dentine can theoretically be used as a basis for age estimation in healthy teeth of non-diabetic individuals; diabetic individuals may exhibit very high pentosidine levels in dentine. This finding limits the application of this method, since information regarding the question if an unidentified person suffered from diabetes mellitus or not are missing in most cases. Moreover, the method is not suitable to identify or rule out the influence of confounding factors in age estimation based on AAR, since both methods are sensible to the most relevant confounding factors (caries, heat).