Sulfated polysaccharides enhance the biological activities of bone morphogenetic proteins.

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), which have been shown to be heparin-binding proteins, induce osteoblast differentiation in mesenchymal cells. In the present study, we examined the effects of heparin on the BMP activities in C2C12 myoblasts. Heparin dose dependently enhanced the osteoblast differentiation induced by not only homodimers of BMP-2 or BMP-4 but also heterodimers of BMP-2/6 or BMP-2/7.