16q21

MMP-15,MT2-MMP,MT2MMP,MTMMP2,SMCP-2

Cancer progression

Both MT1-MMP and MT2-MMP have potential to play important role in cancer either for proliferation or transmigration through extracellular matrix (ECM). Ota and his colleagues have suggested that membrane-localized proteolytic enzyme such as MT1/2-MMP can be induced and recruited towards the tumor cell surface during epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) mediated by Snail1-related signal (Ota et al., 2009). Other group has indicated that cancer cells, such as PANC-1, induce MT2-MMP under hypoxia in a HIF-1 dependent manner (Zhu et al., 2011). These data suggest MT2-MMP may play some role in cancer progression against the physiological stress. It has not been clarified, however, that MT2-MMP can entirely substitute the function of MT1-MMP and vice versa.
Several IHS analyses with clinical samples suggested that MT2-MMP is expressed in several tumor types which include esophageal (Chen et al., 2010), bladder (Mohammad et al., 2010), colorectal (Lyall et al., 2006), and urothelial carcinoma (Kitagawa et al., 1998). In such reports for the colorectal and bladder cancer, the expression of MT2-MMP was shown to be associated with disease prognosis (Lyall et al., 2006; Mohammad et al., 2010).

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF)

IPF is a disease characterized by fibroblast expansion and ECM accumulation in lung. A previous report suggests MT1-MMP as well as MT2-MMP, was expressed in alveolar epithelial cells, and active MMP-2 was increased in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids in IPF tissue. These MMPs possibly play roles in the pathogeny (García-Alvarez et al., 2006).