Bone Morphogenetic Protein-3 (BMP-3) in Axial Skeletal Formation of Lizard Tail
Skeletal tissues express bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) which act as regulators of skeletal development and maintenance of bone mass in adults (Gamer et al., 2009). BMPs belong to the transforming growth factor-β superfamily (Bahamonde & Lyons, 2001) and are expressed throughout the developing skeleton, influencing cell type specification, cell differentiation and apoptosis during endochondral ossification. At the earliest stages of osteogenesis, BMPs are required for mesenchymal condensation and at the later stages, BMPs-receptor complexes stimulate chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation (Gamer et al., 2010). BMP3 molecule is structurally related to BMPs but it acts as a negative regulator of osteogenesis (Bahamonde & Lyons, 2001; Gamer et al., 2010; Huang et al., 2007). BMP3 is mainly produced by osteoblasts and osteocytes (Long & Ornitz, 2013). This molecule is present within bone and accounts for almost 65% of total BMP (Zhang et al., 2015; Zhou et al., ...