Cocultivation of Human Oral Keratinocytes and Human Osteoblast-Like Cells

Head and neck reconstruction transplants often require a bony structure but also tissue for the intraoral lining. This is why oral keratinocytes and osteoblast-like cells are essential cell types for combined tissue engineered transplants for defects in the field of craniomaxillofacial surgery. Therefore, we isolated oral keratinocytes and osteoblast-like cells from human tissue samples and cocultivated both cell types on the same carrier. Cell proliferation and morphological analysis showed that the contemporaneous cultivation of human oral keratinocytes and human osteoblast-like cells is possible. The successful in vitro cocultivation of hard and soft tissue derived cells on the same carrier will be an important advancement for developing hard and soft tissue reconstruction therapies especially in the oral cavity.