Stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED) offer strong potential for tissue engineering. This is due to their remarkable proliferative capacity, cell stemness, multilineage differentiation capacity, and ease of acquisition with few ethical concerns (Kunimatsu et al., 2018, Miura et al., 2003, Zhang et al., 2016). Different in vivo mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) niches and in vitro microenvironments guide MSC dynamics (Sakaguchi et al., 2005, Yoshimura et al., 2007).

Glucose metabolism is the primary driver of microenvironmental changes affecting cell growth, proliferation, and bioprocess product quality. The influence of glucose on the behavior of different types of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) appears to vary. In the case of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBMSC) for example, a high glucose level (4.5 g/L) both promotes cell proliferation by activating the MAPK and PI3K/Akt signaling pathways (Ryu, Lee, Yun, & Han, 2010) and increases cell senescence by promoting autophagy (Chang, Hsu, & Wu, 2015). However, high glucose levels do not affect the proliferation of human dental pulp stem cells (Kichenbrand, Grossin, Menu, & Moby, 2020) but instead promote their aging through the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway (Asghari, Nasoohi, & Hodjat, 2021). The influence of glucose on SHED growth, apoptosis, and senescence remains to be elucidated.

Therefore, we investigated the effects of varying glucose concentrations on the proliferation and senescence of SHED compared with hBMSC. In addition, we explored the intrinsic mechanism by which glucose alters the cell dynamics of SHED from a glycometabolic perspective.