Indeed, in livers of uPA-ablated mice elevated TIMP-1 levels did not trigger HGF signalling and did not promote metastasis of a murine T-lymphoma cell line.
Here, we show that elevated stromal expression of TIMP-1 promotes liver metastasis in two independent tumor models by inducing the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) signaling pathway and expression of several metastasis-associated genes, including HGF and HGF-activating proteases, in the liver.