Targeting TGF-β signal transduction for fibrosis and cancer therapy

By Dandan Peng, Minyang Fu, Manni Wang, Yuquan Wei, Xiawei Wei. Molecular Cancer, 2022

937 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) has long been identified with its intensive involvement in early embryonic development and organogenesis, immune supervision, tissue repair, and adult homeostasis. The role of TGF-β in fibrosis and cancer is complex and sometimes even contradictory, exhibiting either inhibitory or promoting effects depending on the stage of the disease. Under pathological conditions, overexpressed TGF-β causes epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition, cancer-associated fibroblast (CAF) formation, which leads to fibrotic disease, and cancer. Given the critical role of TGF-β and its downstream molecules in the progression of fibrosis and cancers, therapeutics targeting TGF-β signaling appears to be a promising strategy. However, due to potential systemic cytotoxicity, the development of TGF-β therapeutics has lagged. In this review, we summarized the biological process of TGF-β, with its dual role in fibrosis and tumorigenesis, and the clinical application of TGF-β-targeting therapies.

Subfields: Hepatology, Molecular Biology, Oncology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bbb07e4689f9019d8140b138029d5e2f8f52dbd8