Abstract IgE mediated mast cell activation is a key feature of allergic disease, although the mechanisms that govern homeostasis are not fully understood. The TGFb signaling pathway has been shown to regulate effector function. Furthermore, variants in associated with diseases; regulation likely involved allergy diathesis. Patients Loeys Dietz Syndrome (LDS), disorder caused by loss function TG...

Radiotherapy (RT) is employed to achieve local cancer control. However, in rare patients, regression of metastases outside of the radiation field has been reported after irradiation of one tumor site, a phenomenon known as abscopal effect. We have previously shown in experimental tumor models that the abscopal effect is mediated by activation of anti-tumor immune responses by radiotherapy, whic...

The process of entering the bloodstream, intravasation, is a necessary step in the development of distant metastases. The focus of this review is on the pathways and molecules that have been identified as being important based on current in vitro and in vivo assays for intravasation. Properties of the vasculature which are important for intravasation include microvessel density and also diamete...

Metastatic breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancerrelated deaths among women. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive subcategory of breast cancer and currently lacks well-defined molecular targets for effective targeted therapies. Disease relapse, metastasis, and drug resistance render standard chemotherapy ineffective in the treatment of TNBC. Because previous ...

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a developmental process hijacked by cancer cells to leave the primary tumor site, invade surrounding tissue, and establish distant metastases. A hallmark of EMT is the loss of E-cadherin expression, and onemajor signal for the induction of EMT is TGFb, which is dysregulated in up to 40% of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We have constructed an EMT n...