Epicardial cells express BMP factors that regulate epicardial behaviors. a) Epicardial cells express a multitude of BMP mRNAs when assayed by RT-PCR. b) Only BMP6 expression level was significantly increased after TGFβ1 treatment when assayed by QRT-PCR. c,d,f,g) Epicardial cells treated with TGFβ1 and Noggin (200ng/mL) inhibited epicardial sheet migration significantly when compared to untreated, TGFβ1-stimulated epicardial sheets. e) Epicardial cells treated with BMP2, only, stimulated sheet migration with a rate equivalent to TGFβ1 stimulated sheets. f–h) Similar to BMP2, Epicardial cells stimulated with BMP6 in medium did not express SMA when compared to TGFβ1 stimulated cells. However, BMP6 treatment enhanced sheet migration to a rate equivalent to TGFβ1 stimulated sheets. [(p=0.92). n=40 images; Scale bar=50µm; *p≤0.001; ^p≤0.001 from TGFβ1 treated].