The human pluripotency gene NANOG/NANOGP8 is expressed in gastric cancer and associated with tumor development

It is well known that cancer cells exhibit characteristics similar to normal stem cells. The majority of tumors frequently overexpress genes commonly found in embryonic stem cells. To determine whether the pluripotency gene NANOG and its retrogene, NANOGP8, play a role in gastric cancer, we analyzed the NANOG/NANOGP8 expression profile at the mRNA and protein level in primary gastric tumors. Our data demonstrated that overexpression of NANOG/NANOGP8 was consistently detected in primary tumors (75%, 30/40) compared to adjacent normal tissues (12.5%, 5/40). Furthermore, NANOG/NANOGP8 was highly expressed in the intestinal metaplasia (60%, 24/40) and dysplasia tissues (66.7%, 20/30) compared to normal tissues. These results suggest that NANOG/NANOGP8 exhibits potential as a biomarker and its expression may play an important role in gastric cancer development.