RESEARCH ARTICLE
A Method for Rapid Demineralization of Teeth and Bones
Andrew Cho1, Shigeki Suzuki1, Junko Hatakeyama1, Naoto Haruyama1, Ashok B Kulkarni1, 2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 223
Last Page: 229
Publisher ID: TODENTJ-4-223
DOI: 10.2174/1874210601004010223
Article History:
Received Date: 21/7/2010Revision Received Date: 8/9/2010
Acceptance Date: 9/9/2010
Electronic publication date: 15/12/2010
Collection year: 2010
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Tooth and bone specimen require extensive demineralization for careful analysis of cell morphology, as well as gene and protein expression levels. The LacZ gene, which encodes the ß-galactosidase enzyme, is often used as a reporter gene to study gene-structure function, tissue-specific expression by a promoter, cell lineage and fate. This reporter gene is particularly useful for analyzing the spatial and temporal gene expression pattern, by expressing the LacZ gene under the control of a promoter of interest. To analyze LacZ activity, and the expression of other genes and their protein products in teeth and bones, it is necessary to carry out a complete demineralization of the specimen before cutting sections. However, strong acids, such as formic acid used for tooth demineralization, destroy the activities of enzymes including those of ß-galactosidase. Therefore, most protocols currently use mild acids such as 0.1 M ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid (EDTA) for demineralization of tooth and bone specimen, which require a longer period of treatment for complete demineralization. A method by which hard tissue specimens such as teeth and bones can be rapidly, but gently, decalcified is necessary to save time and effort. Here, we report a suitable method for rapid demineralization of mouse teeth in 0.1M EDTA at 42˚C without any loss of ß-galactosidase activity.
