MMP2 and cancer: Moreover, AKT activation also contributes to the malignant phenotype of cancer cells in various ways [45], including stabilizing the cell cycle inhibitors p21Cip1 and p27Kip1 and inducing the translation of mRNAs for cyclins D1 and D3 [46, 47] to enhance cell cycle progression, overexpression of anti-apoptotic factors, such as Bcl-2, Bcl-xL and survivin [48] to promotes cell survival, and up-activation of NF-κB and regulation of MMP-2 and 9 activities [49, 50] to facilitate tumor cell invasion.