Function
The MMPs play an important role in tissue remodeling associated with various physiological and pathological processes such as morphogenesis, angiogenesis, tissue repair, cirrhosis, arthritis, and metastasis. MMP-2 and MMP-9 are thought to be important in metastasis. MMP-1 is thought to be important in rheumatoid and osteo-arthritis. Recent data suggests active role of MMPs in the pathogenesis of Aortic Aneurysm. Excess MMPs degrade the structural proteins of the aortic wall.
Read more about this topic: Matrix Metalloproteinase
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“Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)
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