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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 21, 2015; 21(39): 10931-10935
Published online Oct 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i39.10931
Anticancer effect of adenosine on gastric cancer via diverse signaling pathways
Ayako Tsuchiya, Tomoyuki Nishizaki
Ayako Tsuchiya, Tomoyuki Nishizaki, Division of Bioinformation, Department of Physiology, Hyogo College of Medicine, Nishinomiya 663-8501, Japan
Author contributions: Tsuchiya A performed experiments; Tsuchiya A and Nishizaki T wrote and reviewed the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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: Tomoyuki Nishizaki, MD, PhD, Professor, Division of Bioinformation, Department of Physiology, Hyogo College of Medicine, 1-1 Mukogawa-cho, Nishinomiya 663-8501, Japan. tomoyuki@hyo-med.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-798-456397 Fax: +81-798-456649
Received: April 21, 2015
Peer-review started: April 22, 2015
First decision: June 2, 2015
Revised: June 11, 2015
Accepted: August 25, 2015
Article in press: August 25, 2015
Published online: October 21, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Emerging evidence has pointed to adenosine as a tumor suppressor. The most crucial problem for chemotherapy is side effects. Adenosine is an endogenous substance, and therefore, no or fewer side effects are expected for chemotherapy using adenosine. Extracellular adenosine induces apoptosis of gastric cancer cells through intrinsic and extrinsic signaling pathways. Adenosine and its signaling cascades, therefore, could represent a promising drug for gastric cancer chemotherapy. Moreover, the contribution of each downstream target molecule of adenosine to apoptosis induction may aid the establishment of tailor-made chemotherapy for gastric cancer.