OBJECTIVE:Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) plays a vital role in the prevention and treatment of skeleton diseases, recently researches on the molecular mechanism of sheep prolific FecB gene indicated that BMP and its receptors have important influence on animal follicular development. In this study the influence of different type BMPs andits receptors on the follicular development was reviewed in order to explore effective modulation on animal reproduction.DATA SOURCES: Computer was applied to retrieve Medline database on the related literatures from January 1998 to June 2005. The retrieval words were "BMP" and "BMPR" that combined respectively. Language in the articles was limited to English. Simultaneously related articles were also computer searched in China periodical full text database and Wanfang databases from January 1996 to December 2005 with the retrieval words of "BMP, BMPR", that limiting the article language to Chinese.STUDY SELECTION: At first, the document was retrieved, altogether 200 studies on BMP and its receptors were enrolled including 140 Chinese literatures and 60 English literatures.DATA EXTRACTION: these literatures were screened and 30 were included for relating to the BMP characteristic, as well as the influence of BMP and its receptors on follicular development and reproductive endocrine.DATA SYNTHESIS: Of the 30 literatures, 18 experiments discussed the function of BMP and its receptors and its signal transduction mechanism,12 were about the influence of different BMP on reproductive cell secretion, as well as receptor mutation on ovulation.CONCLUSION: BMPs family plays vital role in animal reproductive modulation, current experiments prove that the changes of signal transduction due to BMP receptor gene mutation has made breakthrough for the exploration of the prolific mechanism in sheep. Moreover studies on follicular development modulation and ovulation mechanism are liable to provide theoretical reference for the prolific modulation in sheep or other species.

Objective To investigate the imaging diagnosis of vocal cord paralysis.Methods Of 58 patients,53 cases was unilateral and 5 bilateral.All patients underwent laryngeal tomography and 6 of them underwent CT.The imaging findings were analyzed.Results The tomography findings of unilateral vocal cord paralysis were as follows:dilated piriform sinus,41.5%;asymmetrical vestibule,39.6%;enlarged ventricle,71.7%;thinning cord,47.2%;paralyzed cord higher than intact cord,73.6%;cord fixed in adducent position during inspiration,100%;tilting of the thyroid cartilage,11.3%.The cord fixed in paramedian was the main appearance of bilateral vocal cord paralysis.The CT features of vocal cord paralysis included dilated piriform sinus(6 cases),enlarged laryngeal ventricle(4 cases),fixed cord in paramedian position(4 cases)and tilted anteromedially arytenoid cartilage(5 cases).Conclusion To evaluate the functional abnormality of larynx,tomography is useful and CT is well to display the laryngeal anatomic structures and changes,therefore,if the diagnosis is uncertain by tomography or the intrinsic lesions of larynx is suspected,CT is recommended.