Hepatitis B viral HBx induces matrix metalloproteinase-9 gene expression through activation of ERK and PI-3K/AKT pathways: Involvement of invasive potential TAE-WOOK CHUNG * , YOUNG-CHOON LEE † and CHEORL-HO KIM * ,1 * National Research Laboratories for Glycobiology, Ministry of Science and Technolgoy, and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Oriental Medicine, Dongguk University, Kyungju, South Korea; and † Faculty of Biotechnology, Dong-A University, Busan, South Korea 1 Correspondence: National Research Laboratories for Glycobiology and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Oriental medicine, Dongguk University, Sukjang-Dong 707, Kyungju City, Kyungbuk 780-714, Korea. E-mail: chkimbio@dongguk.ac.kr <h3>SPECIFIC AIMS</h3> The X protein (HBx) of hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been shown to be essential for the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We recently found that HBx causes the progression of liver cancer through down-expression of PTEN, known as a tumor suppressor gene (Chung et al., Cancer Res ., 2003). The prognosis for HCC depends mainly on the clinicopathological characteristics regarding invasion and metastasis. The expression of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) has been implicated for an important role in HCC invasion and metastasis. Unfortunately, there is no direct evidence that HBx-induced MMP-9 expression can induce HCC invasion and metastasis,
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