Methods: Thirty healthy patients (24-60y) scheduled for multiple extractions were selected. One sound tooth and one carious vital tooth were collected from each patient. Samples were classified from 60 in total: 30 sound controls, 22 deep caries and 8 shallow caries teeth. The teeth were cut and the pulps were sectioned longitudinally in half. ElLISA was used to analyze protein in half of the pulp tissues, and the other half was used for mRNA analysis by RT-PCR.
Results: ELISA data showed in deep caries samples a 67% increase (14/22 cases) and a 33% decrease (8/22 cases) of VEGF expression. While the shallow caries samples showed only a 12.5% increase (1/8 cases) and 88.5% decrease (7/8 cases). VEGF mRNA analyzed by semi-quantitative RT-PCR showed consistently correlated increase or decrease as shown at protein levels in 19 cases. Every sample has been analyzed as compared to the sound tooth from each patient.
Conclusion: At this point these results showed that there is an increase (67%) on VEGF expression in deep caries as compare to teeth with shallow caries. Further study should be done to increase the sample size by caries type and future mRNA quantification by real time PCR. VEGF and its signaling molecules could be a therapeutic target to prevent the progression of pulpitis to necrosis.
Supported by AAE Foundation.