In contrast, Smad7 has been shown to inhibit cancer progression and metastasis in many tumor types in experimental models, including melanoma, breast cancer colorectal cancer, head and neck and liver cancers in vitro and in vivo (Azuma et al., 2005; Javelaud et al., 2005; Leivonen et al., 2006; Rizzo et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2013). Here, SMAD7 is linked to cancer.