c-Ski acts as a transcriptional co-repressor in transforming growth factor-beta signaling through interaction with smads.

Smads are intracellular signaling mediators of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily that regulates a wide variety of biological processes. Among them, Smads 2 and 3 are activated specifically by TGF-beta. We identified c-Ski as a Smad2 interacting protein. c-Ski is the cellular homologue of the v-ski oncogene product and has been shown to repress transcription by recruiting histone deacetylase (HDAC). Smad2/3 interacts with c-Ski through its C-terminal MH2 domain in a TGF-beta-dependent manner. c-Ski contains two distinct Smad-binding sites with different binding properties. c-Ski strongly inhibits transactivation of various reporter genes by TGF-beta. c-Ski is incorporated in the Smad DNA binding complex, interferes with the interaction of Smad3 with a transcriptional co-activator, p300, and in turn recruits HDAC. c-Ski is thus a transcriptional co-repressor that links Smads to HDAC in TGF-beta signaling.