Signaling by the Wnt family of secreted glycoproteins plays important roles in embryonic
development and adult homeostasis. Wnt signaling is modulated by a number of …

The transforming growth factor ß (TGF-ß) family of hormonally active polypeptides have
attracted much attention because of their ability to control cellular functions that underwrite …

Neural induction represents the earliest step in the determination of ectodermal cell fates. In
vertebrates, bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) act as signals of epidermal induction. The …

The transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) superfamily contains a variety of growth factors
which all share common sequence elements and structural motifs. These proteins are …

Vascular calcification is a common problem among the elderly and those with chronic kidney
disease (CKD) and diabetes. The process of tunica media vascular calcification in CKD …

Heart induction in Xenopus occurs in paired regions of the dorsoanterior mesoderm in
response to signals from the Spemann organizer and underlying dorsoanterior endoderm …

The anterior visceral endoderm plays a pivotal role in establishing anterior-posterior polarity
of the mouse embryo, but the molecular nature of the signals required remains to be …

Communication between cells during early embryogenesis establishes the basic
organization of the vertebrate body plan. Recent work suggests that a signalling pathway …

The Smad proteins are important intracellular mediators of the transforming growth factor β
(TGFβ) family of secreted growth factors. Smad1 is an effector of signals provided by the …

The BMPs (bone morphogenetic proteins) and the GDFs (growth and differentiation factors)
together form a single family of cystine-knot cytokines, sharing the characteristic fold of the …