Maxillofacial Bone Regeneration Using Tissue Engineering Concepts - Engineered Bone: Tissue Engineering Intelligence Unit - page 184

Figure 1. Three categories of maxillofacial bone defects.
Figure 2. Tissue engineering concepts with three elements, stem cell scaffold and signal molecule.
Bone Morphogenetic Protein
The most widely studied molecules are members of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)
family. In 1965, Dr. Urist 3 purified BMP as a substance to induce the local bone formation.
Since then, at least 15 BMPs, have been cloned and their osteogenic activities have been char-
acterized. Of these recombinant human BMPs, BMP-2 is one of the most osteoinductive agents.
However, it's a just single growth factor that promote only a single regeneration pathway. So, it
is suggested that the potential for bone regeneration is limited. Therefore, large amounts of
rh-BMP-2 would be required for adequate bone formation and so its clinical application for a
massive bone defect would not be realistic.