Function
In normal tissue, basic fibroblast growth factor is present in basement membranes and in the subendothelial extracellular matrix of blood vessels. It stays membrane-bound as long as there is no signal peptide.
It has been hypothesized that, during both wound healing of normal tissues and tumor development, the action of heparan sulfate-degrading enzymes activates bFGF, thus mediating the formation of new blood vessels, a process known as angiogenesis.
In addition, it is synthesized and secreted by human adipocytes and the concentration of bFGF correlates with the BMI in blood samples. In this study, bFGF was also shown to act on preosteoblasts - in the form of an increased proliferation - after binding to fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 and activating phosphoinositide 3-kinase.
bFGF has been shown in preliminary animal studies to protect the heart from injury associated with a heart attack, reducing tissue death and promoting improved function after reperfusion.
Recent evidence has shown that low levels of FGF2 play a key role in the incidence of excessive anxiety.
Additionally, bFGF is a critical component of human embryonic stem cell culture medium; the growth factor is necessary for the cells to remain in an undifferentiated state, although the mechanisms by which it does this are poorly defined. It has been demonstrated to induce gremlin expression which in turn is known to inhibit the induction of differentiation by bone morphogenetic proteins. It is necessary in mouse-feeder cell dependent culture systems, as well as in feeder and serum-free culture systems.
Read more about this topic: Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor
Other articles related to "functions, function":
... For instance, a sequence of functions can frequently be constructed that approximate, in a suitable sense, the solution to a problem ... Then the integral of the solution function should be the limit of the integrals of the approximations ... However, many functions that can be obtained as limits are not Riemann integrable, and so such limit theorems do not hold with the Riemann integral ...
... In general, an integral over a set E of a function f is written Here x need not be a real number, but can be another suitable quantity, for instance, a vector in R3 ... Just as the definite integral of a positive function of one variable represents the area of the region between the graph of the function and the x-axis, the double integral of a positive ... The same volume can be obtained via the triple integral — the integral of a function in three variables — of the constant function f(x, y, z) = 1 over ...
... the statement that differentiation and integration are inverse operations if a continuous function is first integrated and then differentiated, the original function is retrieved ... fundamental theorem of calculus, allows one to compute integrals by using an antiderivative of the function to be integrated ...
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“We are thus able to distinguish thinking as the function which is to a large extent linguistic.”
—Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1934)