© 2003 by BMJ Publishing Group & British Society of Gastroenterology
COMMENTARY
Cancer
Keeping neuroendocrine cells in check: roles for TGFß, Smads, and menin?
G J Dockray, Physiological Laboratory, University of Liverpool, Crown St, PO Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK; g.j.dockray@liverpool.ac.uk
Neuroendocrine tumour cells of the gastroenteropancreatic tract are subject to paracrine and autocrine growth inhibition by transforming growth factor ß which may account for the low cell proliferation of this tumour
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The endocrine cells of the gastrointestinal epithelium sense the luminal contents and through secretions at their basolateral side signal both to other epithelial cells and to subepithelial cells, including smooth muscle, neurones, and inflammatory cells.1 Some of the features of these cells are clearly neurone-like and for a time it was thought that during development they might be derived, like enteric neurones, from the neural crest. This now seems unlikely, and instead it is thought that normally they arise from the pluripotent stem cells that also give rise to the other epithelial cell lineages.2 However, in some circumstances at least, these cells appear to have the capacity for proliferation, and in extreme cases this gives rise to tumours that are called "neuroendocrine" as they exhibit some of the features of neurones and endocrine cells. There are many similarities between neuroendocrine tumours of the gastrointestinal tract and pancreas. In general,
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Article
- Autocrine growth inhibition by transforming growth factor ß-1 (TGFß-1) in human neuroendocrine tumour cells
- A Wimmel, B Wiedenmann, and S Rosewicz
Gut 2003 52: 1308-1316.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
