Abstract
Bone morphogenetic protein 2 (Bmp2) is a secreted growth factor that modulates many essential physiological and developmental processes through extracellular signaling. Bmp2 signaling is essential in neuronal differentiation, embryonic vasculogenesis, and cardiac development. Recent identification of a novel nuclear variant of Bmp2 challenged its sole classification as a secreted growth factor. Nuclear Bmp2 (nBmp2) is translated from an alternative start codon downstream of the signal peptide sequence, which allows a bipartite nuclear localization signal to direct translocation to the nucleus. In order to elucidate the function of nBmp2, microarray analyses were performed on cells transfected with nBmp2. These analyses indicated that over‐expression of nBmp2 alters the expression levels of hundreds of different genes. From this list, genes were selected for further analysis by quantitative RT‐PCR. This work confirmed that nBmp2 significantly alters the expression levels of several genes that are expressed in neuronal and cardiac tissue. These results suggest a functional role for nBmp2 in development or maintenance of neurological and circulatory systems. This work was supported by the NIH grant AR4883 and by an award from the Fulton Family Foundation to support undergraduate research.
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