These results demonstrate a role of TIMP-1 during NO-induced pro-survival signaling that is mediated, at least in part, through Akt activation in MDA-MB-231 cells grown in culture, and are consistent with the observations in breast tumors demonstrating enhanced NOS2/pAkt-(ser473) in breast tumors expressing high TIMP-1 protein (Table 3). Here, TIMP1 is linked to breast neoplasm.