SMAD4 and neoplasm: Smad4 also performs TGFβ-independent functions that include silencing the expression of TGFβ target genes in T-lymphocytes (T-cells) (Igalouzene et al., 2022), upregulating genes that promote natural killer (NK) cell maturation (Wang et al., 2018), and tumour suppression by mediating Aurora A kinase degradation (Jia et al., 2014).