... and subsequent kidney development. The surface ectoderm expresses BMP-4 and we show that it is required for the maintenance of high-level BMP-4 expression in lateral plate mesoderm. Addition of a BMP-4-coated bead to embryos lacking the surface ectoderm restored normal levels of Sim-1 and Pax-2 mRNA expression...

... expression and cell division of myogenic precursors is halted. This initially leads to an up-regulation of MyoD expression and to a burst in terminal differentiation but further muscle growth is arrested. Locally applied bone morphogenetic protein-4 (BMP-4) to somites mimics the effect of the ectoderm...

... protein-4 (BMP-4) and Wnt-8. BMP-4 plays a conserved role in patterning the vertebrate dorsoventral axis, whilst the precise role of Wnt-8 and its relationship with BMP-4, are still unclear. Here we have investigated the role played by the GATA family of transcription factors, which are expressed...

... of genes are able to rescue dominant-negative Xvent phenotypes including Bmp-4, Smad-1 and wild-type Xvent s and Xhox3 , but not Xwnt-8 . The results show that Xvent-1 and Xvent-2 are essential for ventral mesoderm formation and for preventing neural differentiation. A model is suggested to explain how Bmp...

...Andrea Streit; Kevin J. Lee; Ian Woo; Catherine Roberts; Thomas M. Jessell; Claudio D. Stern ABSTRACT We have investigated the role of Bone Morphogenetic Protein 4 (BMP-4) and a BMP antagonist, chordin, in primitive streak formation and neural induction in amniote embryos. We show that both BMP-4...

...Kenji Mizuseki; Masashi Kishi; Masaru Matsui; Shigetada Nakanishi; Yoshiki Sasai ABSTRACT In a differential screen for downstream genes of the neural inducers, we identified two extremely early neural genes induced by Chordin and suppressed by BMP-4: Zic-related-1 (Zic-r1), a zinc finger factor...

... these apoptotic events. In an effort to identify some of the genes that may be involved in the apoptotic pathway we show that Msx -2 is upregulated in the apoptotic neuroepithelium and thus may be involved, whereas Bmp-4 is not altered and thus presumably not involved. Since these apoptotic event take place...

...Ryu Maeda; Ako Kobayashi; Ryo Sekine; Jih-Jing Lin; Hsiang-fu Kung; Mitsugu Maéno ABSTRACT This study analyzes the expression and the function of Xenopus msx-1 ( Xmsx-1 ) in embryos, in relation to the ventralizing activity of bone morphogenetic protein-4 (BMP-4). Expression of Xmsx-1 was increased...

...Roland Dosch; Volker Gawantka; Hajo Delius; Claudia Blumenstock; Christof Niehrs ABSTRACT The marginal zone is a ring of tissue that gives rise to a characteristic dorsoventral pattern of mesoderm in amphibian embryos. Bmp-4 is thought to play an important role in specifying ventral mesodermal fate...

... was transformed into lateral plate tissue, indicating that the primitive somite was not fully committed and that the lateral plate has a cue for mesodermal lateralization. Since the lateral plate expresses a high level of BMP-4 mRNA, a member of the TGF-β family, we hypothesized that it is the molecule...

... that control facial outgrowth and patterning are largely unknown. The bone morphogenetic proteins Bmp-2 and Bmp-4 are expressed in discrete regions at the distal tips of the early facial primordia suggesting possible roles for BMP-2 and BMP-4 during chick facial development. We show that expression of Bmp-4...

... that neural induction in Xenopus proceeds as the default in the absence of epidermis inducers. The best candidates for the endogenous epidermis inducers are BMP-4 and BMP-7. The neural inducing activity of Xnr3 can be inhibited by overexpression of BMP-4, as has been observed with the neural inducers noggin...

..., are eliminated by programmed cell death. The transcripts of bone morphogenetic protein ( Bmp )- 2 and - 4 were first detected in the areas where cell death was observed, then showed overlapping expression with the programmed cell death zones except the opaque zone. To investigate the function of BMP-2 and BMP-4...

... genes are related by sequence homology, expression pattern and gain-of-function phenotype. Evidence is presented for a role of Xvent-2 in the BMP-4 pathway involved in dorsoventral patterning of mesoderm. (1) Xvent-2 is expressed in regions that also express BMP-4 . (2) Xvent-2 and BMP-4 interact...

... these coincident events are functionally correlated. The experiments consisted of local administration of TGFβ-1, TGFβ-2 or BMP-4 by means of heparin or Affi-gel blue beads to the chick limb autopod in the stages preceding the onset of interdigital cell death. When beads bearing either TGFβ-1 or -2 were implanted...

...R. Ladher; T. J. Mohun; J. C. Smith; A. M. Snape ABSTRACT Bone morphogenetic protein-4 (BMP-4) is thought to play an important role in early Xenopus development by acting as a ‘ventralizing factor’ and as an epidermal determinant: local inhibition of BMP-4 function in whole embryos causes...

... and paraxial genes such as Bmp-4 and MyoD . Ectopic expression of BMP-4 ventralizes embryos and positively regulates the expression of Vox , suggesting that these genes are components of a reciprocal regulatory network. * Author for correspondence (e-mail: [email protected] ) † Present...

...C. Michael Jones; Leslie Dale; Brigid L. M. Hogan; Christopher V. E. Wright; J. C. Smith ABSTRACT Injection of RNA encoding BMP-4 into the early Xenopus embryo suppresses formation of dorsal and anterior cell types. To understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to know the stage at which BMP-4...

... an important role in dorsal-ventral patterning during gastrulation through the action of signaling factors such as BMP-4. Bmp-4 is closely related to the Drosophila decapen-taplegic ( dpp ) gene, and like Bmp-4, dpp is excluded from the neurogenic region. Recently we showed that Bmp-4 functions in an analogous...

... in several regions of the developing embryo. In this report, we provide evidence to support the role of Sonic hedgehog and its target genes Bmp-4 and the Abd-B -related Hox genes in the induction and patterning the chick hindgut. Sonic is expressed in the definitive endoderm at the earliest stage of chick...