MMP9 and cancer: VDAC1/PHB/MMP9, the target of the synthetic depside compounds used in this study, play critical roles in the regulation of mitochondrial functions, survival, metabolism, stem cell potential, and invasion capacity in cancer cells, and changes in the expression levels of these targets can have decisive effects on tumor progression and treatment responses [19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25].