Kyoto Univ. Group Successfully Creates Jawbone from iPS Cells

Jiji Press

11:19 JST, August 29, 2025

KYOTO (Jiji Press) — A Kyoto University research group has said it became the first in the world to create 3D jawbone-like organoids from human induced pluripotent stem, or iPS, cells.

The organoids developed into mature bone tissue after being transplanted into mice. The team of the university’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, or CiRA, expects that its method will be applied to regenerative medicine and drug discovery.

The team’s findings were published in an online edition of the international journal Nature Biomedical Engineering in July.

Creating a jawbone was considered difficult, because the development process is different from that of bones of other parts of the human body and there was no sufficient technology to replicate the network structure of bone cells making up the vast majority of the jawbone.

The team collected and cultured human iPS cells to produce cell aggregates that would eventually become jawbone cells. As the cell culture process proceeded, white clusters with diameters of 1.0 to 1.5 millimeters formed, with the team confirming calcification inside.

The team transplanted the human iPS cell-derived bone organoids into holes drilled in the mandibles, or the bones of the lower jaw, of mice. Four weeks later, the holes were filled with bone tissue similar to that which forms from a conventional bone graft.

The team also replicated a disease model for osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease, by growing iPS cells made from patients with this condition.

It found that healthy bone tissue can be produced from iPS cells in which a genetic mutation causing the disease has been repaired.