Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2002) 3 S22

BES2002 Symposia Metalloproteinases and Their Inhibitors: Regulators of Endocrine Activity (4 abstracts)

The biology of matrix metalloproteinases and their inhibitors

H Nagase


The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology Division, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, UK.


Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) play critical roles in embryonic development, morphogenesis, blastocyst implantation, ovulation, post-partum uterine involution, endometrial cycling, bone remodelling and wound healing, and in diseases such as arthritis, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, tissue ulceration and fibrosis. Currently, twenty-four vertebrate MMPs have been reported. An important feature of the MMPs is that many of these genes are inducible by growth factors, cytokines, physical stress, oncogenic transformation, cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions. Our studies on mouse uterus during peri-implantation period indicated striking changes in expression of MMP-2, MMP-9, MT2-MMP and TIMP-3 mRNAs during days 1-8 of pregnancy, suggesting their involvement in early phase of decidualization through ECM modelling.

The activities of MMPs are regulated by the endogenous inhibitors, TIMPs and α2-macroglobulin. The 3D structure of TIMP-1 and TIMP-3 complex revealed the inhibition mechanism of TIMPs. TIMPs exhibit additional biological activities. TIMP-1 and TIMP-2 have mitogenic activity and anti-apoptotic activity. TIMP-3 exhibits apoptotic activity. Most of those cellular activities are independent of the MMP-inhibitory activity.

Volume 3

21st Joint Meeting of the British Endocrine Societies

British Endocrine Societies 

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