  We review briefly the notion of BPS preons, first introduced in
11-dimensional context as hypothetical constituents of M-theory, in its
generalization to arbitrary dimensions and emphasizing the relation with
twistor approach. In particular, the use of a 'twistor-like' definition of BPS
preon (almost) allows us to remove supersymmetry arguments from the discussion
of the relation of the preons with higher spin theories and also of the
treatment of BPS preons as constituents. We turn to the supersymmetry in the
second part of this contribution, where we complete the algebraic discussion
with supersymmetric arguments based on the M-algebra (generalized Poincare
superalgebra), discuss the possible generalization of BPS preons related to the
osp(1|n) (generalized AdS) superalgebra, review a twistor-like kappa-symmetric
superparticle in tensorial superspace, which provides a point-like dynamical
model for BPS preon, and the role of BPS preons in the analysis of supergravity
solutions. Finally we describe resent results on the concise superfield
description of the higher spin field equations and on superfield supergravity
in tensorial superspaces.
