Objective: This mini-review aims to discuss research works about heparanase published in 2017 and 2018 and provide a direction for therapy methods targeting heparanase.
Patients and methods: The relevant data were searched by using keywords "heparanase", "function", "diseases" and "inhibitors" in "PubMed, "Web of Science" and "China Knowledge Resource Integrated databases (CNKI)", and a hand-search was done to acquire peer-reviewed articles and reports about heparanase.
Results: Except for tumor progression, pathological processes including procoagulant activities, preeclamptic placentas, inflammation and so on are all verified to be associated with heparanase activity. Also, these newly-found functions are closely connected to certain cellular activities, including epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT).
Conclusions: It could be concluded that heparanase would be a potential and valuable therapeutic target.