Abstract
The tooth is one of the ideal models for developmental study, involving
in epithelial-mesenchymal transition and cell differentiation. The
essential factors and pathways identified in tooth development will help
understand the natural development process and the malformations of
mineralized tissues such as skeleton. The time-dependent proteomic
changes were investigated by healthy human molars proteomics of
embryonic stages from the cap-to-early bell stage. A total of 713
differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) with five temporal expression
patterns were filtered. 24 potential driver proteins of tooth
development were screened by weighted gene co-expression network
analysis (WGCNA) including CHID1, RAP1GDS1, HAPLN3, AKAP12, WLS, GSS,
DDAH1, CLSTN1, AFM, RBP1, AGO1, SET, HMGB2, HMGB1, ANP32A, SPON1, FREM1,
C8B, PRPS2, FCHO2, PPP1R12A, GPALPP1, U2AF2 and RCC2. The hub proteins
in different temporal expression patterns were extracted. And the
potential cell resources and the temporal expression patterns at
transcriptomic level were explored using single cell RNA-sequencing
(scRNA-seq). This study provides invaluable resources for the
mechanistic studies of human embryonic epithelial and mesenchymal cell
differentiation and tooth development.