New therapeutic targets in the development of gastric cancer: from chronic gastritis to gastric cancer

Abstract

The fact that gastric cancer presents a poor prognosis underlines the importance of having tools for early diagnosis. In that sense, the objective of this doctoral thesis is the study of the obestatin/GPR39 system in development, maintenance and malignancy of gastric cancer. Our results confirm that this system is involved in the secretion of gastric enzymes; and the development of gastric cancer by being able to intervene in epithelial-mesenchymal transition, proliferation, migration and invasion of gastric cancer cells. The expression of GPR39 in the chief cells shows the possible importance of the system in SPEM that is key to the evolution to intestinal metaplasia, dysplasia and finally cancer. Obestatin-stimulable RTKs and MMPs are expressed in a differential way in the Correa sequence, evidencing the role of this system in gastric cancer. The metabolomic study of biofluids reveals their informative capacity for biomarkers identification and the establishment of reliable non-invasive protocols.