Department of Developmental Biology, Beckman Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, California 94305-5427, USA.
Murine Bmp7 has been assigned to distal Chromosome 2 by interspecific backcross mapping. The map location suggests close linkage to classical mouse mutations and places Bmp7 within a chromosome region thought to contain one or more unidentified imprinted genes. A direct test suggests that Bmp7 is not imprinted. An examination of embryonic RNA expression patterns shows that Bmp7 is expressed in a variety of skeletal and nonskeletal tissues. Both embryonic expression patterns and the human chromosomal sublocalization inferred from its mouse location make Bmp7 a candidate for the gene affected in some patients with Holt-Oram syndrome.