CDH2 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Gelatinases (MMP2) are important players of tumor invasion that degrade ECM components and activate the latent TGF-β1 present in extracellular space.[18, 38] We demonstrated that incubation of HCC-LM3 and MHCC-97H cells with Dp44mT led to the accumulation of E-cadherin and loss of N-cadherin and vimentin.