Matrix Proteases In Health And Disease

For basic and applied scientists in the molecular life sciences, Behrendt, a researcher at Copenhagen U. Hospital in Denmark who focuses on protease-dependent tissue remodeling, the interplay of these processes with other cellular functions, and their role in cancer invasion, presents 15 articles by molecular biologists, cancer researchers, and other scientists from Europe, the US, and Canada, who survey the field of proteases in the pericellular and extracellular matrix environment that direct tissue remodeling. They address the role of several matrix proteases and proteolytic reactions in normal physiology and in various pathological conditions. They discuss the groups of matrix proteases in the context of the entire degradome, different classes of proteases, specific cascade systems, and single proteolytic components with defined roles in the extracellular matrix, and their role in health and disease; the fibrinolytic system of plasminogen activation, with respect to enzymology and function in the normal organism, regulators, and the role in cancer invasion and function in ischemic stroke; and the function of the serpin-type inhibitor, protease nexin-1, and its roles in cancer. They also cover type-II transmembrane serine proteases; matrix metalloproteases and their relation to cancer invasion and metastasis; membrane-associated matrix metalloproteases; the ADAM group (a disintegrin and metalloproteases) and their function and role in cancer; the cystein proteases, their extracellular roles (especially in cancer), and the role of cathespin K in bone remodeling; bacterial abuse of mammalian extracellular proteases during tissue invasion and infection; and clinical aspects of matrix proteases as cancer biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Niels Behrendt is a research group leader at the Finsen Laboratory at the Rigshospitalet (Copenhagen University Hospital), Denmark. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1989 and his D.Sc. degree from Copenhagen University in 2004. The main focus of his work is in protease-dependent tissue remodeling, the interplay of these processes with other cellular functions and their role in cancer invasion.