Inter-relationships of the Dental Tissues The tooth germ has three main components -the enamel organ, the dental papilla and the dental follicle (Fig. 1). The enamel organ is an epithelial structure derived from the ectoderm that lines much of the oral cavity. The dental papilla and the dental follicle are ectomesen chymal (mesectodermal), being partly derived from cells that mi grated from the neural crest early in embryogenesis. Both the gross morphology of the tooth germ and the differentiation of its cells de pend upon a complex pattern of inductive interactions between the epithelium and...