Advances in research on molecular mechanisms and target diagnosis of gastric cancer

Multiple cellular factors and molecular signal pathways including PI3K/AKT pathway; MAPK pathway; growth factors and receptors like HER, VEGF/VEGFR and MET; inflammation-related factors like COX-2, NF-κB, STAT and interleukins, are involved in the occurrence and development of gastric cancer, these factors play a key role in apoptosis inhibition, proliferation promotion and cell cycle regulation of gastric cancer cells, as well as invasion, migration and angiogenesis of stomach malignancy. They are also expressed at a higher level in gastric cancer tissue compared with normal gastric mucosa and characterized as biomarkers, whose target therapies mostly have been in clinical trials. Based on these theoretical foundations, the research on molecular diagnosis of gastric cancer has made some progress.Instruments for target detection tend to be mature. However, the research of molecular probes is still in pre-clinical trials, which remains to be further developed.