GrowTallest

TGF-β

The master chondrogenic signal in a culture dish, and a brake on elongation in a living growth plate, which is why raising it makes bones shorter rather than longer.

Inside the plateUpdated

15 min read51 sources

Three limbs compared as TGF-β signalling rises from left to right. The growth plate is the same size in each, but the column of swelling cartilage cells inside it shrinks and the bone below it gets shorter, so more signal gives a shorter bone. The bar beneath runs from low signal on the left to high on the right. Less signallonger boneNormalset pointMore signalshorter bone

TGF-β is the standard chondrogenic stimulus of cell culture. Almost every protocol that turns mesenchymal stem cells into cartilage uses it, and it works. That success is the reason it is proposed for height, and the reason the proposal is backwards.

In this article

  • At the growth plate
  • Compounds
  • Summary

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