ArticleNature cell biology2013
TGF-β2 dictates disseminated tumour cell fate in target organs through TGF-β-RIII and p38α/β signalling.
Article in Nature cell biology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 334 papers.
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Who cites it
334 citing papers in PubMed, 491 citations in OpenAlex.
- Targeting dormant tumor cells to prevent recurrent breast cancer: a randomized phase 2 trial.Nature medicine · 2025Trial
- A CTC/DTC-centered temporal framework of bone metastasis: From dissemination to dormancy and reactivation.Journal of bone oncology · 2026Review
- Tgfbr3 is required for the long-term maintenance of self-renewal potential in murine hematopoietic stem cells.Blood science (Baltimore, Md.) · 2026Article
- IL-24 Induces Cell Dormancy and Oxaliplatin Resistance in Colon Cancer Cells by Activating NF-κB Pathway.Molecular carcinogenesis · 2026Article
- Tumor-Driven Inflammation Promotes Tumor Growth: A Focus on Anti-Inflammatory Cancer Treatments.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Proteoglycans as Molecular Regulators of Bone Metastasis: Extracellular Matrix Remodeling, Tumor-Bone Crosstalk, Dormancy, and Therapeutic Opportunities.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Rewiring dormancy.Nature cell biology · 2026Article
- The sleeping threat: targeting cancer dormancy to transform metastasis therapy.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2026Review
- Reciprocal signaling-metabolic crosstalk between fibroblasts and tumor cells drives cetuximab tolerance in head and neck cancers.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2026Article
- Radiotherapy, EMP and dormancy in TME: An integrated perspective on tumor microenvironments and long-term relapse.iScience · 2026Review
- The circadian gene Dec2 promotes pancreatic cancer progression and dormancy through immune evasion.Developmental cell · 2026Article
- When effective anticancer therapies are, in fact, destabilizing the tumor's Group Phenotypic Composition.NPJ precision oncology · 2026Review
- Injectable and viscoelastic click alginate hydrogels for spatio-temporal T cell administration in vivo.Materials today. Bio · 2026Article
- Intrinsic and extrinsic regulators of cancer dormancy and awakening.Journal of the National Cancer Center · 2026Review
- Targeting dormant cancer cells: ferroptosis as a precision therapeutic strategy.Cellular & molecular biology letters · 2026Review
- Review
- TGFβ signaling systems are prone to inhibition and ligand competition by coreceptor.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- PRDM16 Regulates Prostate Cancer Cell Dormancy and Prevents Bone Metastatic Outgrowth.Cancer research · 2026Article
- Immune Niche Formation Reveals Mechanisms of Tumor Dormancy and Targeting Opportunities.Research square · 2026Article
- Remodeling the tumor dormancy ecosystem to prevent recurrence and metastasis.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Review
274 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In patients, non-proliferative disseminated tumour cells (DTCs) can persist in the bone marrow (BM) while other organs (such as lung) present growing metastasis. This suggested that the BM might be a metastasis 'restrictive soil' by encoding dormancy-inducing cues in DTCs. Here we show in a head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) model that strong and specific transforming growth factor-β2 (TGF-β2) signalling in the BM activates the MAPK p38α/β, inducing an (ERK/p38)(low) signalling ratio. This results in induction of DEC2/SHARP1 and p27, downregulation of cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and dormancy of malignant DTCs. TGF-β2-induced dormancy required TGF-β receptor-I (TGF-β-RI), TGF-β-RIII and SMAD1/5 activation to induce p27. In lungs, a metastasis 'permissive soil' with low TGF-β2 levels, DTC dormancy was short-lived and followed by metastatic growth. Importantly, systemic inhibition of TGF-β-RI or p38α/β activities awakened dormant DTCs, fuelling multi-organ metastasis. Our work reveals a 'seed and soil' mechanism where TGF-β2 and TGF-β-RIII signalling through p38α/β regulates DTC dormancy and defines restrictive (BM) and permissive (lung) microenvironments for HNSCC metastasis.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.