Bone morphogenetic proteins（BMP） are a large subgroup within the transforming growth factor - β （TGF- β）family, and these proteins actually play important roles in embryogenesis and organogenesis, even though they were discovered because of their osteoinductive activity. Recent studies have shown that BMP can be expressed in different malignant tumor cells and demonstrated the role of BMP in different malignant tumor cells and tumor formation. These studies suggest that BMP play a crucial role in the malignant tumor progression to regulate the behavior of cells. This review summarized these studies on effects of bone morphogenetic proteins （BMP- 2）on the proliferation and metastasis of malignant tumor cells, because BMP- 2 is one of the most activated proteins in this subgroup.
