Jung Huang, Ph.D., Emerius Professor of Biochemistry, recently published a paper in FASEB BioAdvances entitled “IGFBP-3 and TGF-β inhibit growth in epithelial cells by stimulating type V TGF-β receptor (TβR-V)-mediated tumor suppressor signaling.” The paper details important findings on cytokine tumor suppressors that inhibit tumorigenesis by inhibiting epithelial cell growth.
The article describes the molecular mechanisms of TβR-V-mediated growth inhibition in epithelial cells by IGFBP-3 and TGF-β, which are the only known cytokine-tumor suppressors that prevent carcinogenesis or tumorigenesis by inhibiting growth in normal epithelial cells. TβR-V was discovered by the Huang lab in 1991 and is the only known membrane receptor-tumor suppressor required for epithelial cells. Loss or low levels of TβR-V expression in epithelial tissues leads to development of human cancer and more than 80% of human cancers are carcinomas derived from epithelial cells.
Because of the potential of these findings to have an impact in the prevention and treatment of human cancer for decades to come, the authors dedicated the work to the Centennial Celebration of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Acknowledgements of the paper.
Models for the mechanisms by which IGFBP-3 (A) and TGF-β (B) induces cellular growth inhibition and the cross talk between TβR-V and IR/IGF-1R signaling.
