BMPs (bone morphogenetic proteins) are determining factors in the mechanisms of embryonic development and differentiation of tissues such as bone, muscle and nervous. It knows its restrictive action on neuronal differentiation, promoting
the maintenance of progenitor cells, and in the adult organism can induce the formation of bone tissue. For his role as bone regenerators, these factors have been the subject of a more or less profound for decades.

To date, there have been isolated more than 20 BMP, including BMP-2, which switches the differentiation of mesenchymal cells of myogenic and neurogenic lineages. Their in ibitory capacity lies in blocking the action of transcription factors and neurogenic type myogenic BHLH (basic factors helix-loop-helix), Researchers at the University of Barcelona published two papers in EMBO and JBC, which describes a new model for the mechanism of repression of BMP-2 on transcription factors MASH1 and miogenina, respectively, both of the bHLH family. Although this was already known transcriptional blockade, the authors
also described a process of rapid degradation and elimination of these factors, within a molecular strategy to guide the process of differentiation into other cell types.

In this new process described involves two other polypeptides involved in the differentiation of cell lineages, and E. Id proteins The latter are regulated negatively by the first, also on the type polypeptide helix-loop-helix acting as dominant antagonists of the E, inhibiting its binding to DNA. The levels of both proteins regulate not only transcriptional function but also protein stability of bHLH transcription factors (MASH1 and miogenina). Thus, both studies advance a new model for the regulation of molecular signals that mark the fate of cell
lines and could open new perspectives on embryonic stem cells and tissue regeneration, and promote the design of new clinical approaches to genetic engineering.