The Research Progress of Matrix Metalloproteinases in Invasion and Metastasis of Gastric Cancer

侵袭和转移是胃癌最主要的生物学特征，也是导致治疗失败和患者死亡的主要原因，因此阻止胃癌的侵袭和转移在治疗过程中具有非常重要的意义。胃癌发生侵袭和转移，必须伴随细胞外基质和基底膜完整性的破坏、肿瘤细胞粘附能力的改变、血管生成，基质金属蛋白酶(matrix metalloproteinases, MMPs)则在其中扮演着重要的角色，目前以其作为治疗靶点的药物已进入临床试验阶段。本文就MMPs在胃癌侵袭和转移中的作用做一简单综述。 As is known to all, the most important thing for treating gastric cancer is to prevent its invasion and metastasis, which are the most common causes of treatment failure and mortality. When invasion and metastasis happened, it always accompanied with the integrity destruction of the extracellular matrix and the basement membrane. And it often leads to the change of tumor cell adhesion ability and angiogenesis as well. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) plays a significant role in the invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer. As a therapeutic target, the drugs affected on MMPs had reached the stage of clinical trials. I will make a simple review to introduce the role of MMPs in the invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer.