Fibroblast growth factors.docVIP

/2001/2/3/reviews/3005.1 Protein family review Fibroblast growth factors David M Ornitz* and Nobuyuki Itoh? Addresses: *Department of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology, Washington University Medical School, 660 S. Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA. ?Department of Genetic Biochemistry, Kyoto University Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Yoshida-Shimoadachi, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan. Correspondence: David M Ornitz. E-mail: dornitz@ Published: 9 March 2001 GenomeBiology 2001, 2(3):reviews3005.1–3005.12 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2001/2/3/reviews/3005 ? BioMed Central Ltd (Print ISSN 1465-6906; Online ISSN 1465-6914) Summary Fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) make up a large family of polypeptide growth factors that are found in organisms ranging from nematodes to humans. In vertebrates, the 22 members of the FGF family range in molecular mass from 17 to 34 kDa and share 13-71% amino acid identity. Between vertebrate species, FGFs are highly conserved in both gene structure and amino-acid sequence. FGFs have a high affinity for heparan sulfate proteoglycans and require heparan sulfate to activate one of four cell- surface FGF receptors. During embryonic development, FGFs have diverse roles in regulating cell proliferation, migration and differentiation. In the adult organism, FGFs are homeostatic factors and function in tissue repair and response to injury. When inappropriately expressed, some FGFs can contribute to the pathogenesis of cancer. A subset of the FGF family, expressed in adult tissue, is important for neuronal signal transduction in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Gene organization and evolutionary history Gene organization untranslated exon splices to these exons or whether alterna- tive promoter and regulatory sequences are used. The prototypical
gf genes contain three coding exons (;igure 1), with exon 1 containing t