Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 28, 2018; 24(24): 2567-2581
Published online Jun 28, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i24.2567
Tumor heterogeneity of gastric cancer: From the perspective of tumor-initiating cell
Jian-Peng Gao, Wei Xu, Wen-Tao Liu, Min Yan, Zheng-Gang Zhu
Jian-Peng Gao, Wei Xu, Wen-Tao Liu, Min Yan, Zheng-Gang Zhu, Department of Surgery, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China
Author contributions: Gao JP performed the literature research, data analysis, and wrote the manuscript; Xu W performed the literature research and data analysis; Liu WT contributed to the literature research and provided a critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content; Yan M and Zhu ZG supervised the study and provided a critical revision of the manuscript prior to submission.
Supported by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Medical Engineering Cross Research Fund, No. YG2014MS59.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest.
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: Wen-Tao Liu, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Surgeon, Surgical Oncologist, Department of Surgery, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 197 Ruijin Road II, Shanghai 200025, China. wt_mygod@163.com
Telephone: +86-21-64370045 Fax: +86-21-64314781
Received: March 20, 2018
Peer-review started: March 21, 2018
First decision: April 24, 2018
Revised: April 30, 2018
Accepted: May 26, 2018
Article in press: May 26, 2018
Published online: June 28, 2018
Core Tip

Core tip: Gastric cancer (GC) remains a severe malignancy with high incidence and mortality rates. One major underlying mechanism of GC rapid progression, extensive spreading, and chemoresistance is tumor heterogeneity could be explained by the gastric tumor-initiating cell (GATIC). Since the initial identification of putative GATICs in 2007, substantial studies have been performed to investigate various aspects of GATICs. Here, we systemically discuss the tumor heterogeneity of GC from the view of GATICs by reviewing studies on the identification and validation of GATICs, origination of GATICs, plasticity of GATICs and its underlying mechanism, and current status of chemotherapeutic agents targeting GATICs.