Abstract

Abstract Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second most common cause of cancer death worldwide. HCC account more than 700 thousand deaths per year. Most of the HCC develops from a cirrhotic liver, and one of the main features of cirrhotic livers is the presence of fibrotic tissue replacing parenchymal cells. Thus, there is a close connection between fibrosis and HCC development. Understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in this process is a crucial step to advance in novel therapeutic or pharmacological strategies to prevent or improve the course of this malignancy. A key molecular player capable of modulating cell growth and fibrosis is the Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β\betaβ​). Interestingly, TGF-β\betaβ​ seems to acts like a swithch, since it has dual and opposite roles during  early and late phases of cancer development. Therefore to develop therapies that targets TGF-β\betaβ​ signaling pathway is important to understand the underlying mechanism with special empahsis in the crosstalk with another signaling pathways. In the last years, has been developed a plethora of TGF-β\betaβ​ signaling pathway inhibitors and some of them are under clinical investigations for testing in patients with advanced HCC. In this review, we summarize the recent knowledge about the role of TGF-β\betaβ​ signaling pathway in HCC progression.