“…1) CELL PROLIFERATION CONTROL BY SMADS (Hayashi et al, 1997;Imamura et al, 1997;Nakao et al, 1997;Hata et al, 1998a;Ishisaki et al, 1998Ishisaki et al, , 1999Souchelnytskyi et al, 1998;Lebrun et al, 1999). Whereas Smad7 acts as a general inhibitor of TGF-b family member signaling pathway, Smad6 preferentially blocks BMP signaling Ishisaki et al, 1999). The ®rst described mechanism for I-Smads antagonism was through their competition with R-Smads for the interaction with the activated type I receptor (Hayashi et al, 1997;Imamura et al, 1997;Nakao et al, 1997;Souchelnytskyi et al, 1998).…”