NODAL and cancer: This finding is consistent with genetic mutants of Nodal/TGFβ that are unable to form a primitive streak (Brennan et al., 2001; Dunn et al., 2004), inhibition of ESC differentiation via TGFβ or Wnt antagonist treatment (Gadue et al., 2006) and EMT processes during cancer metastasis that similarly require autocrine TGFβ signaling (Scheel et al., 2011).