Bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP7), a member of the BMP family of signaling molecules, has been implicated in various types of cancer, particularly prostate cancer and breast cancer.
Our results show that BMP-7 is expressed in metastatic PCa and its levels are increased in castration-resistant PCa versus androgen-dependent PCa, whereas the expression of BMP-7 is decreased in primary PCa versus normal prostate.
The loss of endogenous BMP-7 from prostate cancer cells is associated with increased invasiveness and motility, which appears to be facilitated by changes in the level of the BMP antagonists noggin and follistatin.
Furthermore, BMP7 expression in prostate cancer cell lines was inversely related to tumorigenic and metastatic potential in vivo and significantly correlated to E-cadherin/vimentin ratios.