Introduction: Dental tissues represent an alternative and promising Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) source for tissue engineering. Recently, a new population of MSCs residing in the apical papilla of permanent immature teeth has been discovered and was termed SCAP. Aim: This work is aimed to characterize human stem cells of the apical papilla to provide new insight on SCAP research for future biomedical applications. Methods: SCAP cultures were established from impacted third molars of young healthy donors at the stage of root development. Cultures were analyzed for stem cell markers, including CD73, CD44 and CD45 using flow cytometry. Results: The obtained results revealed that 43.9% and 75.9% of the CD44 and CD73 positive cells; respectively didn't express CD45. Conclusion: the isolated stem cells are isolated from non-hematopoietic but mesenchymal source. These results suggest that SCAP represent a very promising adult mesenchymal stem cells source with enhanced properties that could be isolated and characterized by flow cytometric methods to be used for tissue engineering applications

Key Words:
Regeneration, mesenchymal stem cells, immature teeth, flowcytometry, stem cells from the apical papilla.