Patent ID: 7129054

Claim:
An isolated antibody or antibody fragment which specifically binds to a protein of the TGF-β family which has mitogenic and/or differentiation-inductive activity, wherein the antibody or antibody fragment binds to a part of the protein encoded by a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of: (a) the nucleotide sequence shown in the SEQ ID NO:1, or the following fragments: nucleotides 128–1183 of SEQ ID NO:1, nucleotides 836–1183 of SEQ ID NO:1, and nucleotides 866–1183 of SEQ ID NO:1; (b) a nucleotide sequence encoding an amino sequence selected from the group consisting of amino acids 1–352 of SEQ ID NO:2, amino acids 237–352 of SEQ ID NO:2 and amino acids 247–352 of SEQ ID NO:2; and (c) fragments of (a) or (b) which comprise at least a nucleotide sequence encoding the amino acid sequence 247–352 of SEQ ID NO:2 and which encode a protein that retains the mitogenic and/or differentiatio-inductive activity of a mature protein encoded by the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO:1.