Several authors have reported that gastric carcinomas can be classified as having either a gastric (G), gastric and intestinal mixed (GI) or intestinal (I) phenotype, depending on the immunopositivity of human gastric mucin (HGM), MUC6, MUC2 and CD10 stainings (Tajima et al, 2001b, 2003; Kabashima et al, 2002). The gene discussed is MUC5AC; the disease is gastric carcinoma.