Bioavailability: Is this a key event in regulating the actions of peptide growth factors?

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Abstract
The regulation of cell growth and function that occurs during development, in differentiated cell homeostasis and in wound healing, is determined by two distinct classes of trophic factors: classical endocrine hormones and paracrine or autocrine growth factors. Regulation of hormone activity is achieved by tight control of their synthesis, and especially release, by cells in discrete glands, linked to the limited expression of high-affinity receptors by defined, distant target cells. In contrast, growth factors and their receptors are often constitutively expressed and the former are exported to the extracellular milieu by most normal tissues. How then are target cells protected from constitutive activation by locally produced growth factors? This may be achieved by another tier of target cell-specific regulatory signals. Once exteriorized, many growth factors are stored in significant quantities in pericellular depots adjacent to their target cells, often complexed with other binding molecules either in the tissue fluid or

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