The expression of both proteins was higher in cancer cell than in normal tissue, where 15 % of normal colorectal cells expressed the presence of TIMP-2 and only 1 % of normal cells were MMP-2 positive, which is in line with the study of Gershtein et al., who revealed that the content of MMP-2 in tumors of patients with colorectal cancer was significantly increased in comparison with the adjacent normal mucosa [19]. Here, MMP2 is linked to cancer.