Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta)/Smads regulate a wide variety of biological responses through transcriptional regulation of target genes. Smad3 plays a key role in TGF-beta/Smad-mediated transcriptional responses. Here, we show that the proline-rich linker region of Smad3 contains a transcriptional activation domain. When the linker region is fused to a heterologous DNA-binding domai...

The transforming growth factor-beta superfamily is thought to be involved in the regulation and control of growth and differentiation. These growth factors signal through transmembrane serine/threonine kinase receptors. The activation of type I receptor kinase phosphorylates a family of intracellular signalling proteins called Smads. In the present study, we wanted to localize type I and type I...

Recent work on a variety of normal and malignant cell lines has shown that induction and secretion of biologically active TGF-beta may occur after exposure to all-trans-retinoic acid (RA), coincident with decreased growth rate and/or differentiation. This study evaluates the expression and regulation of transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) and its receptors during RA-induced cell growth a...

Tacrolimus (FK-506) controls organ rejection; however, arteriolar hyalinosis is a frequent complication. By use of mice lacking FK-506-binding protein-12 in endothelial cells, Chiasson and co-workers explored the contribution of endothelial cells and the transforming growth factor-β pathway to define mechanisms of hyalinosis. Absence of this binding protein removed a tonic inhibition to activat...