Opposing roles and potential antagonistic mechanism between TGF-β and BMP pathways: Implications for cancer progression

The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) superfamily participates in tumour proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, migration, invasion, immune evasion and extracellular matrix remodelling. Genetic deficiency in distinct components of TGF-beta and BMP-induced signalling pathways or their excessive activation has been reported to regulate the development and progression of some cancers. As more in-depth studies about this superfamily have been conducted, more evidence suggests that the TGF-beta and BMP pathways play an opposing role. The cross-talk of these 2 pathways has been widely studied in kidney disease and bone formation, and the opposing effects have also been observed in some cancers. However, the antagonistic mechanisms are still insufficiently investigated in cancer. In this review, we aim to display more evidences and possible mechanisms accounting for the antagonism between these 2 pathways, which might provide some clues for further study in cancer. (c) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://reativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).