[Dissertations 25 years after date 9. How is tooth eruption regulated?].

A lot of attention has been paid to the questions of how and why teeth erupt. In the past many theories were developed, all of which showed mechanistic characteristics and suggested that a certain structure exerts force on the tooth germ to initiate its eruption. The dominant theory considered the collagenous fibres or the fibroblasts within the periodontal ligament to be the primary moving force in the eruption process. However, most research was done on continuously erupting incisors of rodents or lagomorphs, an experimental model with serious drawbacks. Because dogs, like humans, have teeth with limited eruption, 25 years ago research was carried out on tooth eruption in beagles. One of the most important conclusions of this study was that the periodontal ligament is not the primary moving force in tooth eruption, as its development only begins at the end of the eruption process. In subsequent years several others have focused their research on tooth eruption in beagles. The current state of knowledge in this field can be summarized as follows: the reduced enamel epithelium and the dental follicle control bone deposition and resorption around an erupting tooth germ, enabling its occlusal movement; the periodontal ligament develops only after its emergence in the oral cavity, and is thus not important in the eruption process; the tooth itself does not play a role in the regulation of its eruption.