The transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) pathway plays dual roles in cancer, inhibiting epithelial cell growth under normal physiologic conditions, but promoting invasion and metastasis once growth inhibitory responses are lost. Two recent papers show that TGF-beta receptor III is the most common TGF-beta pathway component downregulated in prostate cancer. Here, we discuss the implication...

Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) has growth-stimulating effects on mesenchymal cells and several tumor cell lines. The signaling pathway for this effect is, however, not well understood. We examined how TGF-beta stimulates proliferation of MG63 human osteosarcoma cells. Two distinct type I receptors for TGF-beta, ALK-1 and ALK-5, were expressed and functional in MG63 cells. Of these t...

Alteration in the expression of growth factors is widely accepted as being one of several critical defects in the generation of the malignant cell. In the present study, 19 human metastatic melanoma cell lines were compared to 14 normal human foreskin melanocyte cell lines for the production of RNA transcripts specific for 11 different growth factors. Using the extremely sensitive technique of ...

The modulation of interleukin 1 (IL-1) effects on proteoglycan metabolism in intact murine patellar cartilage by transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) was investigated in vitro and in vivo. In vitro TGF-beta (400 pmol/l) had no effect on basal proteoglycan degradation. Proteoglycan degradation induced by IL-1, however, was suppressed by TGF-beta in serum free medium alone and in medium sup...

Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) is a potent chemoattractant in vitro for human dermal fibroblasts. Intact disulfide and perhaps the dimeric structure of TGF-beta is essential for its ability to stimulate chemotactic migration of fibroblasts, since reduction with 2-ME results in a marked loss of its potency as a chemoattractant. Although epidermal growth factor (EGF) appears to be cap...

Transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-beta 1) regulates the growth, differentiation, or function of nearly all cell types. We now report that TGF-beta 1 increases steady-state levels of its own message in six different normal and transformed cells in culture. Accumulation of TGF-beta 1 mRNA can be detected by Northern blot analysis within 3 h of addition of the peptide to cells, and enhanced m...

CKShs1 is a mammalian homologue of the yeast suc1 and CKS1 genes, for which the null mutation leads to arrest in both the G1 and G2 phases of the cell cycle in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Northern blot analysis revealed that transcript levels of CKShs1 are strongly down-regulated in mink lung cells and moderately down-regulated in BALB keratinocytes within 10 h of exposure to transforming growth ...

Transforming growth factor beta (TGF beta), a two-subunit Mr 25,000 polypeptide, inhibits growth of several epithelial human cancer cell lines and has been proposed as an autocrine growth inhibitor. TGF beta activity has been found in conditioned media from some breast cancer cell lines, and TGF beta mRNA has been detected in breast cancer cell lines and human breast cancer specimens. In the pr...

We reported previously that transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) selectively induced high levels of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) mRNA and protein in human skin fibroblasts. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanism for TGF-beta regulation of CTGF gene expression. Northern blot and run-on transcription assays indicate that TGF-beta directly activates transcription of...