International Journal of Molecular Sciences

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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is the continuation of our previous issues on related topics, namely "Molecular Features Distinguishing Gastric Cancer Subtypes", "Molecular Pathways and Candidate Biomarkers", "Gastric Cancers: Molecular Pathways and Candidate Biomarkers 3.0" and "Gastric Cancers: Molecular Pathways and Candidate Biomarkers 4.0".

Although there has been progress in the treatment of gastric cancer and a worldwide decline in its pathology, gastric cancer remains a disease characterized by uncontrolled growth and high mortality, which is mostly due to a delay in diagnosis. The epidemiology of gastric cancer has changed in the last 25 years, with a decline in the intestinal type and stomach antral localization but an increase in presence in young people and in the diffuse type. In recent decades, the introduction of high-throughput technologies that are able to analyse several gastric cancers from small biological samples has caused significant advances in the development of biomarkers in oncology. Molecular pathways and biomarkers molecules are potentially useful for GC diagnosis because they increase the accuracy of diagnosis (e.g., the nanomolecule used in confocal laser endomicroscopy) and can be used to select patients at risk for GC at an early stage (e.g., ABC pepsinogen test in japan) and also to propose new GC classifications (e.g., TCAG, ACRG). This research has produced important results that enable us to better understand gastric cancer pathogenesis and individualized important targetable molecules used to achieve novel drug targets and new treatment strategies in advanced gastric cancer. Target therapies are now ongoing, with moderate benefits seen in some subsets of gastric cancer papers, and several trials are underway to achieve an increase in the survival benefit of patients with gastric cancer. The aim of this Special Issue is to provide new findings regarding molecular pathways and biomarkers that could improve the diagnosis and/or the prognostic classification of gastric cancer, and to resume their potential application in GC detection and classification, or in clinics.

Dr. Valli De Re
Guest Editor

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Related Special Issues

Published Papers (1 paper)

Review

18 pages, 2480 KiB

Open AccessReview

Historical and Molecular Perspectives on the Presence of Helicobacter pylori in Latin America: A Niche to Improve Gastric Cancer Risk Assessment

by Roxana González-Stegmaier, Patricia Aguila-Torres and Franz Villarroel-Espíndola

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(3), 1761; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms25031761 - 01 Feb 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1028

Abstract

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is responsible for causing chronic gastritis, which can cause peptic ulcer and premalignant lesions such as atrophic gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, and dysplasia, with the risk of developing gastric cancer. Recent data describe that H. pylori colonizes the gastric mucosa of more than 50% of the world’s population; however, this bacterium has been described as infecting the human population since its prehistory. This review focuses on the populations and subpopulations of H. pylori, differentiated by the polymorphisms present in their constitutive and virulence genes. These genes have spread and associated with different human populations, showing variability depending on their geographical distribution, and have evolved together with the human being. The predominant genotypes worldwide, Latin America and Chile, are described to understand the genetic diversity and pathogenicity of H. pylori in different populations and geographic regions. The high similarity in the sequence of virulence genes between H. pylori strains present in Peruvian and Spanish natives in Latin America suggests a European influence. The presence of cagA-positive strains and vacA s1 m1 allelic variants is observed with greater prevalence in Chilean patients with more severe gastrointestinal diseases and is associated with its geographical distribution. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the genetic diversity of H. pylori in different regions of the world for a more accurate assessment of the risk of associated diseases and their potential impact on health. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Gastric Cancer: Molecular Pathways and Candidate Biomarkers 5.0)

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