“…In addition to this Smad-dependent canonical BMP signaling pathway, BMP signaling can also be mediated through Smadindependent mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways, known as non-canonical pathways (Sieber et al, 2009). In the developing mouse tooth, several Bmp genes, including Bmp-2, -3, -4, and -7, are expressed in either epithelial or mesenchymal components (Nie et al, 2006), and BMP activities have been implicated in the determination of tooth-forming site and tooth type (Neubüser et al, 1997;Tucker et al, 1998), progression of tooth development from the bud stage to the cap stage (Chen et al, 1996;Zhang et al, 2000;Zhao et al, 2000), and terminal differentiation and tooth eruption (GluhakHeinrich et al, 2010;Yao et al, 2010). BmprIa and BmprIb have been shown to be expressed, and to function redundantly to a certain extent, in the developing tooth (Li et al, 2011).…”