ABSTRACT
Membrane-type 1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1 MMP/MMP 14) plays crucial roles in tumor cell growth, invasion, and angiogenesis. To clarify whether the endogenously expressed MT1-MMP in metastatic human ovarian carcinoma cell lines SKOV3 plays a critical role in tumor cell invasiveness, antisense MT1-MMP cloned in eukaryotic expression vector pMMP14as was transferred into SKOV3 cells. 48h after transfection, decreased expression of endogenous MT1-MMP protein was detected in pMMP14as transfected SKOV3 cells and the activation of pro MMP2was inhibited markedly. The mean percentage of invasive cells was (62. 50 ±5. 30) % in pMMP14as-transfected cells, which was obviously less than that (97.20±6.90) % in the control.Thus, antisense MT1 MMP effectively inhibited the endogenous MT1 MMP expression and the invasiveness in SKOV3 cells, suggesting that MT1-MMP may be a therapeutic target molecule for human invasive ovarian cancers.