“…It has been shown that activated MMP-2 is frequently observed in tumor sites, and is associated with poor prognosis of many types of cancer including melanoma, colorectal, breast, ovarian, lung and prostate cancer (37). The -1306 polymorphic site of MMP-2 is located upstream of the MMP-2 gene and may affect the protein expression by modulating its transcription, hence leading to the occurrence of human diseases, such as bladder cancer and sclerosing cholangitis (38,39); A variety of transcription factors, such as activator protein-1 (AP-1), specificity protein-1 (SP-1) and activator protein-2 (AP-2), have binding sites at the MMP-2 promoter region to regulate transcription of the MMP-2 gene (40,41). For instance, when the C nucleotide is substituted by T at MMP-2 -1306, the SP-1 binding region is inactivated, thus inhibiting the transcription and as a result the translation of MMP-2 (42).…”