Dental clinicians have relied for centuries on traditional dental materials (polymers, ceramics, metals, and composites) to restore oral health and function to patients. Clinical outcomes for many crucial dental therapies remain poor despite many decades of intense research on these materials. Recent attention has been paid to biomolecules as a chassis for engineered preventive, restorative, and regenerative approaches in dentistry. Indeed, biomolecules represent a uniquely versatile and precise tool to enable the design and development of bioinspired multifunctional dental materials to spur advancements in dentistry. In this review, we survey the range of biomolecules that have been used across dental biomaterials. Our particular focus is on the key biological activity imparted by each biomolecule toward prevention of dental and oral diseases as well as restoration of oral health. Additional emphasis is placed on the structure–function relationships between biomolecules and their biological activity, the unique challenges of each clinical condition, limitations of conventional therapies, and the advantages of each class of biomolecule for said challenge. Biomaterials for bone regeneration are not reviewed as numerous existing reviews on the topic have been recently published. We conclude our narrative review with an outlook on the future of biomolecules in dental biomaterials and potential avenues of innovation for biomaterial-based patient oral care.

中文翻译：

---

利用生物分子制造仿生牙科生物材料。

几个世纪以来，牙科临床医生一直依靠传统的牙科材料（聚合物、陶瓷、金属和复合材料）来恢复患者的口腔健康和功能。尽管对这些材料进行了数十年的深入研究，但许多重要牙科疗法的临床效果仍然不佳。最近人们开始关注生物分子作为牙科工程预防、恢复和再生方法的基础。事实上，生物分子代表了一种独特的多功能和精确的工具，可以设计和开发仿生多功能牙科材料，从而促进牙科的进步。在这篇综述中，我们调查了牙科生物材料中使用的生物分子范围。我们特别关注每个生物分子所赋予的关键生物活性，以预防牙齿和口腔疾病以及恢复口腔健康。另外还强调生物分子及其生物活性之间的结构-功能关系、每种临床状况的独特挑战、常规疗法的局限性以及每类生物分子针对所述挑战的优势。用于骨再生的生物材料没有得到审查，因为最近发表了许多关于该主题的现有评论。我们通过对牙科生物材料中生物分子的未来以及基于生物材料的患者口腔护理的潜在创新途径的展望来结束我们的叙述性回顾。