Mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 7

SMAD7 or Mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 7 is a polypeptide that, as its name describes, is a homolog of the Drosophila gene: "Mothers against decapentaplegic". It belongs to the SMAD family of proteins, which belong to the TGFβ superfamily of ligands. Like many other TGFβ family members SMAD7 is involved in cell signalling. It is a TGFβ type 1 receptor antagonist. It blocks TGFβ1 and activin associating with the receptor and blocking access to SMAD2. It is an inhibitory SMAD (I-SMAD) and is enhanced by SMURF2.