Introduction: Cardiac allograft rejection is associated with an individual’s inflammatory cytokine gene polymorphism. It was hypothesized that possession of specific cytokine alleles might be influential in predisposing the recipient to allograft rejection. Methods: DNA from nucleated peripheral blood cells of 65 cardiac transplantation patients and 77 controls were tested for IL-2, TNF-a, TGF-...

The TGF-b, a tumor suppressive cytokine in normal cells, is abused in cancer to promote the malignancy. In this study, we reported that TGF-b downregulated the mutS homolog 2 (MSH2), a central component of the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) system, in HER2-transformed MCF10A mammary epithelial cells and in breast cancer (BC) cells. This was mediated by a TGF-b–induced micro RNA (miRNA), miR-21, whic...

The cytokine transforming growth factor-b (TGF-b) is an important negative regulator of adaptive immunity. TGF-b is secreted by cells as an inactive precursor that must be activated to exert biological effects, but the mechanisms that regulate TGF-b activation and function in the immune system are poorly understood. Here we show that conditional loss of the TGF-b-activating integrin avb8 on leu...

Aberrant proliferation and migration of residual lens epithelial cells (LECs) is the main cause posterior capsule opacification (PCO) after cataract surgery. The purpose this study was to confirm protective effects Astragaloside IV (AST) in transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β)-induced LECs. Human LECs, SRA01/04, were used study. MTT assay EdU perform cell viability proliferation, respectivel...

The microRNA (miR)-29 family is closely associated with fibrotic processes by virtue of its low expression in many tissues during organ fibrosis. The present study investigated whether miR-29b overexpression suppressed hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation and its interactions with transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1/mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 3 (Smad3), a classical signal transdu...

It has been proposed that cross talk between integrin and growth factor receptor signaling such as ErbB2 (HER2) is required for activation of downstream effectors and ErbB2mediated mammary tumorigenesis. Here we show that transforming growth factor B (TGF-B) induced focal adhesion kinase (FAK)–dependent clustering of HER2 and integrins A6, B1, and B4 in HER2-overexpressing mammary epithelial ce...

In 1889, Paget launched the ‘seed and soil’ hypothesis, which postulated that disseminated cancer cells—the ‘seeds’—can spread throughout the body but will preferentially metastasize to specific organs that provide congenial ‘soil’, the so-called metastatic niche. For instance, breast cancer preferably metastasizes to the liver and the bone. The transition from in situ to invasive breast cancer...

Lymph node (LN) metastasis is commonly associated with systemic distant organ metastasis in human breast cancer and is an important prognostic predictor for survival of breast cancer patients. However, whether tumor-draining LNs (TDLNs) play a significant role in modulating the malignancy of cancer cells for distant metastasis remains controversial. Using a syngeneic mouse mammary tumor model, ...