Deciphering the roles of BMP9 and BMP10 in heart and lung health and disease

The roles of BMP9 and BMP10 in cardiopulmonary homeostasis and disease (renewal)

Pulmonary arterial hypertension, or PAH, is a serious condition where the small arteries inside the lungs become narrow. This puts a strain on the heart, which has to pump harder to force the blood supply through these narrowed lung vessels. This increased pressure on the heart can lead to heart failure. BHF Professor Nick Morrell and his team are working to understand the biology that underlies PAH, so that potentially life-saving medicines can be designed to help to treat this condition. One of the major causes of PAH is now known to be a lack of activity of a protein called BMP9 that circulates in the blood. BMP9 is produced in the liver and is related to another protein, BMP10, which is released from the heart. BMP9 and BMP10 exert powerful protective effects on the cells that line the inside of our blood vessels. But we currently understand little about how BMP9 and BMP10 do this, how they are produced, what controls their levels in our blood, and how they signal their protective effects to the cells that line the blood vessels. In this research programme Professor Morrell and his team will address these questions. By discovering more about BMP9 and BMP10 in PAH, the team could provide evidence for their potential use in strategies to treat other heart and circulatory conditions.