Morphological and labeling evidence supporting and extending a modern theory of tooth eruption.

As the interest in biological mechanisms of tooth eruption has recently been revived by a new eruption theory, the present study was an attempt to contribute new data to this problem. Four male Macaca fascicularis monkeys, two infant (about 13 months old) and two juvenile (about 44 months old), were labeled either by sequential fluorochrome or by single 3H-proline injections and then served for studying the bone apposition patterns around erupting premolars and molars. About 100 microns thick ground sections cut either in the mesiodistal or bucco-oral direction and the corresponding micrographs, microradiographs and autoradiographs, as well as fluorescence micrographs were used. In the multirooted teeth studied, bone apposition was most prominent and fast in the inter-radicular region, while at the fundus of the alveoli, bone apposition was slight or negligible. Around maxillary premolars and molars, bone apposition pointed in the mesial as well as in the axial direction. This was true for the intraosseous and the supraosseous phase of tooth eruption. Using these observations in addition to preliminary data calculated for the rates of bone apposition in the inter-radicular, apical and crestal regions, and for the rate of root elongation, the new eruption hypothesis could be extended. It is suggested that eruption of multirooted teeth, in the presence of corresponding coronal resorption, is entirely explained by forces generated through inter-radicular bone apposition and that their dental follicle is in a stimulating mode inter-radicularly but neutral apically at the bottom of the alveolar fundus.