Although bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are clinically useful for bone regeneration, large amounts are required to induce new bone formation in monkeys and humans. We found recently that heparin stimulates BMP activity in vitro (Takada, T., Katagiri, T., Ifuku, M., Morimura, N., Kobayashi, M., Hasegawa, K., Ogamo, A., and Kamijo, R. (2003) J. Biol. Chem. 278, 43229-43235). In the present st...

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP) have been used successfully by orthopedic clinicians to augment bone healing. However, these osteoinductive proteins must be applied at high concentrations to induce bone formation. The limited therapeutic efficacy may be due to the local expression of BMP antagonists such as Noggin that neutralize exogenous and endogenous BMPs. If so, inhibiting BMP antagonist...

Hemojuvelin (HJV) is a coreceptor for bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling that regulates hepcidin expression and iron metabolism. However, the precise combinations of BMP ligands and receptors used by HJV remain unknown. HJV has also been demonstrated to bind to neogenin, but it is not known whether this interaction has a role in regulating hepcidin expression. In the present study, we s...

OBJECTIVE To examine the expression, regulation, and potential roles of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) in arthritic synovium. METHODS Expression of BMPs in arthritic synovium from patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or spondylarthropathy (SpA) and in noninflamed synovium from patients undergoing diagnostic or therapeutic arthroscopies was studied by reverse transcription-polymerase ch...

Microarrays are research tools used in gene discovery as well as disease and cancer diagnostics. Two prominent but challenging problems related to microarrays are the Border Minimization Problem (BMP) and the Border Minimization Problem with given placement (P-BMP). In this paper we investigate the parameterized complexity of natural variants of BMP and P-BMP, termed BMP and P-BMP respectively,...

To fabricate a sustained-release delivery system of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP-2) on titanium surface, explore the effect of BMP-2 concentration on the loading/release behavior of BMP-2 and evaluate the cell compatibility of the system in vitro, pure titanium specimens were immersed into supersaturated calcium phosphate solutions (SCP) containing 4 different concentrations of BMP-2: 0, 50,...

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) regulate multiple biological processes, including cellular proliferation, adhesion, differentiation, and early development. In Xenopus development, inhibition of the BMP pathway is essential for neural induction. Here, we report that dullard, a gene involved in neural development, functions as a negative regulator of BMP signaling. We show that Dullard promote...

Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling has been implicated in diverse biological processes. Although how BMP signaling regulates behaviors of endothelial cells during angiogenesis are not fully understood, increasing evidence indicate functions of BMP signaling components are essential in developmental and pathological angiogenesis. Here we review recent advances in delineating the function...

OBJECTIVE To assess the effects of combined and sequential administration of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2) and BMP-7 on osteoblastic differentiation compared with administration of single growth factors. DESIGN In vitro study of osseous differentiation in murine pluripotent cells using assays of extracellular matrix calcification, alkaline phosphatase activity, and expression of osseou...

A morphogen gradient of Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling patterns the dorsoventral embryonic axis of vertebrates and invertebrates. The prevailing view in vertebrates for BMP gradient formation is through a counter-gradient of BMP antagonists, often along with ligand shuttling to generate peak signaling levels. To delineate the mechanism in zebrafish, we precisely quantified the BMP a...