Through our analysis, we identified the most significant genes associated with GC, such as secreted phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1), sulfatase 1 (SULF1), thrombospondin 2 (THBS2), ATPase H+/K+ transporting beta subunit (ATP4B), gastric intrinsic factor (GIF) and gastrokine 1 (GKN1).
Compared with the superficial gastritis and atrophic gastritis groups, the expression of GKN1 protein (P = 0.011) and mRNA (P < 0.001) in gastric cancer was significantly decreased.
Interestingly, it was found that GKN1 exerted a synergistic anti-cancerous effect with 5-fluorouracil on tumor cell growth, which suggests a possible therapeutic intervention method for gastric cancer.
The result of the study showed that gastrokine 1 might play a significant role in the process of formation and development of gastric cancer as an anti-oncogene.
These data suggest that the GKN1 gene may play an important role in the progression of sporadic gastric cancers via inhibition of EMT and cancer cell migration.
We found by cytofluorimetry, Western blot and RT-PCR that the overexpression of GKN1 in gastric cancer cell lines (AGS and MKN28) stimulated the expression of Fas receptor.
Interestingly, in gastric cancer (GC) patients, GKN1 was undetectable in tissue tumoral areas but was instead expressed in the corresponding tissue non-tumoral areas.