MMP2 and cardiac hypertrophy: Furthermore, by searching the database, we can easily find that, in the pressure overload model of heart disease, MMP2-deficient mice showed reduced myocardial hypertrophy and fibrosis (Matsusaka et al., 2006) while MMP9 deficiency partially improved myocardial hypertrophy and fibrosis following pressure overload (Heymans et al., 2005).