Taken together, our findings identify TIMP2 as the novel candidate biomarker for poorer outcome of GC patients, and revealed the underlying functions of TIMP2 and the potential mechanisms for GC progression.
Our findings indicated that miR-93 serves as a tumor promoter in human gastric carcinogenesis by targeting TIMP2, suggesting that miR-93 might be a promising biomarker and therapeutic target for treatment of gastric cancer.
We conclude that MMP-related SNPs, especially MMP-7(-181A>G) and TIMP-2(303C>T), may be helpful in identifying gastric cancer patients with a poor clinical outcome.