TGFβ: Roles in DNA Damage Responses

This review focuses on an emerging role for TGFβ in DNA damage and repair and how this function may contribute to its role as an epithelial tumor suppressor. TGFβ is rapidly and widely activated in response to ionizing radiation (IR). IR is a carcinogen, a mode of cancer therapy, and a probe used by biologists to understand how cells and organisms deal with DNA damage. Thus understanding how TGFβ participates in DNA damage response has therapeutic implications. Our data suggest that TGFβ1, in addition to its role in homeostatic growth control, plays a more complex role in regulating tissue response to damage, the failure of which would contribute to the development of cancer. Future studies are likely to uncover evidence of how TGFβ may act to integrate signaling across multiple scales of cell organization, underlining the broadening role of TGFβ as a fulcrum between physiology and pathology.