Extracellular regulation of BMP signaling

In the developing organism, cells differentiate, divide and die as part of groups of hundreds or thousands of cells called 'morphogenetic fields'. Fields have the remarkable property of self-regulation: for example, if the forelimb field is bisected, each half can give rise to a complete limb after transplantation, as discovered by Ross Harrison in 1918. Therefore, cells in the morphogenetic field are capable of long-range communication with each other in order to ascertain their position [1]. This positional information is relayed in the extracellular space in the form of concentration gradients of specific classes of extracellular molecules called 'morphogens' that trigger cellular responses by binding and activating cell surface receptors. Here, we focus on a family of morphogens called 'Bone Morphogenetic Proteins' (BMPs), which has provided a new paradigm for signaling regulation in the extracellular space.