MMP2 and neoplasm: It has been demonstrated that beta-adrenergic signalling can induce tumour angiogenesis by several distinct molecular mechanisms, including upregulation of VEGF expression in a hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF-1-alpha)-dependent manner and also expression of several other proangiogenic factors, such as IL-6, IL-8, MMP-2 and MMP-9 [24,26,27,28,29,30].