Dental agenesis is the congenital absence of one or more teeth. Normally, an adult should have 32 teeth, but about 1% of the population has more or less teeth.

Scientists said that the morphogenesis of individual teeth depends on the interactions of several molecules, including bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP). The Wnt signaling pathway is also involved. Scientists decided to target factors that counteract BMP and Wnt. So they chose the USAG-1 gene.

“We knew that suppressing USAG-1 promoted tooth growth. We didn’t know if that would be enough, ”the scientists said.

As a result, the researchers were able to grow a tooth from a mouse. Later, the experiment was repeated on ferrets.