The molecular docking by LigandFit docking of Discovery Studios 2.5 was employed to the three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship(3D-QSAR) studies of biphenyl carboxylic acid MMP3 inhibitors.A significant correlation coefficient was obtained between dock scores and biological activities.Based on the optimal docking conformations,3D-HoVAIF was employed to the QSAR studies of 51 biphenyl carboxylic acid MMP-3 inhibitors.R2 and Q;V2(leave-one-out,LOO) of the optimal 3D-HoVAIF-PLS model were 0.873 and 0.841 respectively.The conclusions obtained from the PLS analysis were in agreement with the docking results.