Fig. 6.

Schematic model of BMP7v effects in primary and metastatic CRC. a In primary tumor the colon cancer crypt organization, which is physiologically maintained by BMPs/BMP inhibitor balance, is disrupted. The administration of BMP7v selectively counteracts the expansion of the CSC compartment by reducing CD44v6 expression. Moreover, BMP inhibitors (noggin, gremlin, and others), produced by myofibroblasts, are not able to inhibit BMP7v activity on promoting the differentiation of CSCs (upper panel). In metastatic tumor, BMP7v in combination with PI3K inhibitors reduces the number of CD44v6⁺ cells and hampers the tumor metastatic growth (bottom panel). CSC cancer stem cell, DCC differentiated cancer cell, DC differentiated cell