Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Mar 21, 2015; 21(11): 3206-3213
Published online Mar 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i11.3206
Novel CD9-targeted therapies in gastric cancer
Yoko Murayama, Kenji Oritani, Shusaku Tsutsui
Yoko Murayama, Shusaku Tsutsui, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Itami City Hospital, Itami 664-8540, Japan
Kenji Oritani, Department of Hematology/Oncology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita 565-0871, Japan
Author contributions: Murayama Y was responsible for the literature review, and preparation of the manuscript; Oritani K prepared the final version of the manuscript; Tsutsui S provided intellectual support.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yoko Murayama, MD, PhD, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Itami City Hospital, 1-100 Koyaike, Itami 664-8540, Japan. murayama@hosp.itami.hyogo.jp
Telephone: +81-72-7773773 Fax: +81-72-7819888
Received: July 23, 2014
Peer-review started: July 24, 2014
First decision: August 15, 2014
Revised: November 13, 2014
Accepted: December 16, 2014
Article in press: December 16, 2014
Published online: March 21, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Tetraspanin CD9 is a cell-surface protein with four transmembrane domains and is found in several organs. Although CD9 was primarily identified as a tumor suppressor, it exhibits diverse functions through its association with various partner proteins. CD9 relates to tumor proliferation, apoptosis, migration, adhesion, and angiogenesis, therefore involving several steps of tumor formation: communication with the environment, dissemination, and metastasis. In this review, we describe the possibility of CD9 manipulation as a novel therapeutic strategy to improve clinical outcome in gastric cancer.