MMP2 and neoplasm: Given that epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) play a vital role in the process of tumor migration and invasion [19, 20], we thus evaluated the effect of GASP1 knockout on the expression of several EMT-related genes and MMPs, and found that GASP1 depletion clearly down-regulated the expression of N-cadherin, MMP9, MMP2, Slug and Snail1 in HCC1937 and MCF7 cells compared with the control (Fig. 3b).