TGFbeta signalling: a complex web in cancer progression.
The distortion of growth factor signalling is the most important prerequisite in tumour progression. Transforming growth factor-beta (TGFbeta) signalling regulates tumour progression by a tumour cell-autonomous mechanism or through tumour-stroma interaction, and has either a tumour-suppressing or tumour-promoting function depending on cellular context. Such inherent complexity of TGFbeta signalling results in arduous, but promising, assignments for developing therapeutic strategies against malignant tumours. As numerous cellular context-dependent factors tightly maintain the balance of TGFbeta signalling and contribute to the regulation of TGFbeta-induced cell responses, in this Review we discuss how they maintain the balance of TGFbeta signalling and how their collapse leads to tumour progression.
Ikushima
Hiroaki
H
Department of Molecular Pathology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
Miyazono
Kohei
K
D000818:Animals; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000098:blood supply / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic; D015398:Signal Transduction; D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta