Hepcidin is a peptide hormone secreted by the liver that plays a central role in the regulation of iron homeostasis. Increased hepcidin levels result in anemia while decreased expression is the causative feature in most primary iron overload diseases. Mutations in hemochromatosis type 2 (HFE2), which encodes the protein hemojuvelin (HJV), result in the absence of hepcidin and an early-onset for...

The temporal and spatial transcription patterns of the Xenopus laevis Bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2) gene have been investigated. Unlike the closely related BMP-4 gene, the BMP-2 gene is strongly transcribed during oogenesis. Besides some enrichment within the animal half, maternal BMP-2 transcripts are ubiquitously distributed in the early cleavage stage embryos but rapidly decline durin...

Current therapies for tissue regeneration rely on the presence or direct delivery of growth factors to sites of repair. Bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2), combined with a carrier (usually collagen), is clinically proven to induce new bone formation during spinal fusion and nonunion repair. However, due to BMP-2's short half-life and its diffusive properties, orders of magnitude above physiol...

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) regulate many aspects of skeletal development, including osteoblast and chondrocyte differentiation, cartilage and bone formation, and cranial and limb development. Among them, BMP-2, one of the most potent osteogenic signaling molecules, stimulates osteoblast differentiation, while it inhibits myogenic differentiation in C2C12 cells. To evaluate genes involve...

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has a pool of multiple growth factors efficient at inducing the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells (hADSCs). Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-2 is a strong stimulator for the osteogenic differentiation of hADSCs. The purpose of this study was to verify the effect of PRP-released growth factors and microsphere-encapsulated ...

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) such as heparin are promising materials for growth factor delivery due to their ability to efficiently bind positively charged growth factors including bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) through their negatively charged sulfate groups. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine BMP-2 release from heparin-based microparticles (MPs) after first, incorporating a h...

To help identify genes, which may regulate metastasis in lung cancer, we performed representational difference analysis between a patient-derived non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) and immortalized normal human bronchial epithelial cells. This analysis revealed that bone morphogenetic proteins-2/4 (BMP) mRNA was expressed in the lung carcinoma. BMP-2/4 are known to induce pluripotent cell di...

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) perform diverse functions in vertebrate development. Here we demonstrate that the heterodimeric BMP-4/7 protein directly induces ventral mesoderm and blood in Xenopus animal caps, and BMP-2/7 heterodimers may function similarly. We also provide indirect evidence that BMP heterodimers function in embryos, using assays with dominant-negative BMP ligands. Homodim...

To determine bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-2 protein and Aggrecan in osteoarthritic and healthy cartilage with special regard to localization and degree of cartilage damage 95 samples representing osteoarthritic cartilage and 17 samples out of normal cartilage were graded histological by Mankin Score and were studied by immunohistochemistry for the expression of BMP-2 and Aggrecan. BMP-2 pro...