BMP7 and neoplasm: Furthermore, BMP7 has been shown to modulate PTEN (a tumour suppressor protein and endogenous inhibitor of PI3-K) and the Akt pathway (Urbina and Singla, 2014; Chattopadhyay et al., 2017), whilst activation of the Smad1 pathway by BMP2 inhibited serum deprivation-induced apoptosis in neonatal cardiomyocytes, via the induction of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl2 (Izumi et al., 2001).