Revista nº 813

Ibáñez Cortés M, et al. | Artificial oral mucosa Actual Med. 2021; 106(813): 177- 187 179 Attending to the anatomical location in the oral cavity, the native human oral mucosa is classified in three types of oral mucosa with particular histological and functional characteristics (5,16,19) (Table 1): 1. Masticatory mucosa: plays an important role in supporting due to the intense friction and pression forces of the masticatory movement. This mucosa is found in gingiva and hard palade. Histological features include orthokeratinized or parakeratinized epithelium with great amount of rete ridges. In addition, the connective tissue may vary from semidense to dense. In the particular case of the gingiva, there is a scarce submucosa that differs from the lateral surface of hard palate where the submucosa present glandular and adipose tissue. 2. Lining mucosa: the main function is the protection of the oral cavity inside acting as a barrier for microorganisms and other substances. Furthermore, elastic fibers are abundant allowing the streching and relaxing of the tissue. This mucosa is found in lips, soft palade, cheeks, ventral tongue surface and mouth’s floor. Epithelium is nonkeratinizated, connective tissue is lax or semidense and submucosa is well defined with salivary glands, adipose tissue and striated muscle fibers. ANATOMI CAL CLASS I F I CAT I ON OF NAT I VE HUMAN ORAL MUCOSA Localization Histology Function Immunohistochemistry Bibliography Masticatory mucosa Gingiva Thick parakeratinized epithelium, lax or semidense connective tissue with papillae and without submucosa Support masticatory forces CKs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19 Hard palate Thick orthokeratinized epithelium with dense connective tissue and without submucosa or with lax papillary connective tissue and well defined submucosa. CKs 1, 6, 10, 16, 76 (5, 10, 16, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26) Lining mucosa Mouth’s floor* Lax and elastic connective tissue with submucosa linked to muscle Lax connective tissue without submucosa Protection allowing the tissue streching and relaxing CKs 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 16, 19 (5, 10, 12, 16, 19, 24) Lips and cheeks* CKs 1, 4, 5, 13, 14 Ventral tongue* CKs 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 16 Soft palate* CKs 7, 8, 18, 19 Specialized mucosa Dorsal tongue** Connective tissue and submucosa fusionated and linked to the muscle Receive the taste stimuli CKs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 (5, 16, 19, 27, 28) Taste papillae** CKs 1, 2, 4, 10, 11, 13, 16 *** Lingual tonsil* Defensive CKs 5, 6, 7, 13, 14 Table 1. Histological characterization of native human oral mucosa. Anatomical localization, histology, function and immmunohistochemistry of epithelium. *: nonkeratinized epithelium. **: parakeratinized epithelium. ***: in taste buds, CKs 8, 18, 19 are expressed.