Overexpression of gal-1 in an oral carcinoma cell model resulted in an increase of cell migration and invasion in low metastatic cancer cells in vivo and in vitro implicating matrix metalloproteinase (MMP-2 and MMP-9) expression [38], which however was not shown for HTR-8/SVneo cells (our unpublished observation). This evidence concerns the gene MMP9 and cancer.