Contextual Regulation of TGF-β Signaling in Liver Cancer
1
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, China
2
Department of Pathology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, China
3
Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to the work.
Cells 2019, 8(10), 1235; https://doi.org/10.3390/cells8101235
Received: 17 September 2019
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Revised: 9 October 2019
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Accepted: 10 October 2019
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Published: 11 October 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue TGF-beta/BMP Signaling Pathway)
Primary liver cancer is one of the leading causes for cancer-related death worldwide. Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) is a pleiotropic cytokine that signals through membrane receptors and intracellular Smad proteins, which enter the nucleus upon receptor activation and act as transcription factors. TGF-β inhibits liver tumorigenesis in the early stage by inducing cytostasis and apoptosis, but promotes malignant progression in more advanced stages by enhancing cancer cell survival, EMT, migration, invasion and finally metastasis. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underpinning the multi-faceted roles of TGF-β in liver cancer has become a persistent pursuit during the last two decades. Contextual regulation fine-tunes the robustness, duration and plasticity of TGF-β signaling, yielding versatile albeit specific responses. This involves multiple feedback and feed-forward regulatory loops and also the interplay between Smad signaling and non-Smad pathways. This review summarizes the known regulatory mechanisms of TGF-β signaling in liver cancer, and how they channel, skew and even switch the actions of TGF-β during cancer progression.
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Keywords:
TGF-β signaling; Smad; contextual regulation; liver cancer; hepatocellular carcinoma; cytostasis
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MDPI and ACS Style
Tu, S.; Huang, W.; Huang, C.; Luo, Z.; Yan, X. Contextual Regulation of TGF-β Signaling in Liver Cancer. Cells 2019, 8, 1235. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells8101235
AMA Style
Tu S, Huang W, Huang C, Luo Z, Yan X. Contextual Regulation of TGF-β Signaling in Liver Cancer. Cells. 2019; 8(10):1235. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells8101235
Chicago/Turabian StyleTu, Shuo, Wei Huang, Chunhong Huang, Zhijun Luo, and Xiaohua Yan. 2019. "Contextual Regulation of TGF-β Signaling in Liver Cancer" Cells 8, no. 10: 1235. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells8101235
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