Absence of Correlation Between BMP-4 Polymorphism and Postmenopausal Osteoporosis in Italian Women

Abstract.

Several studies have demonstrated that bone has the power of regeneration and repair. BMPs (bone morphogenetic proteins) are involved in the determination of osteoblast phenotype and bone turnover, therefore genes coding for these proteins, like BMP-4, could be considered potential candidate genes for osteoporosis. We investigated the association of BMP-4 gene polymorphism with osteoporosis in a cohort of 72 osteoporotic, postmenopausal women and 82 unrelated controls. We failed to detect any significant association between this genetic marker and the disease.