The Hippo in the room: A new look at a key pathway in cell growth and transformation

During development and in cancer, tissue and cell growth control requires coordinated regulation of cell proliferation and apoptosis. The tumor suppressive Hippo pathway plays a key role in size regulation and cell-contact inhibition. During the past decade, this pathway has been delineated in Drosophila and now is starting to be better understood in mammals, where an increasing level of complexity and cell context specificity is becoming evident. As we discuss, dys-regulation of this pathway at any step can lead to uncontrolled growth and tumor formation. Indeed, a majority of the pathway components have been implicated in human cancers.