Even differentiated gastric carcinomas with a G-phenotype have been reported to be more likely to transform into undifferentiated carcinomas and exhibit infiltrative growth to deeper layers of the invaded surrounding structures through the loss of E-cadherin function, compared with differentiated gastric carcinomas with an I-phenotype (Endoh et al, 1999; Saito et al, 2001; Tajima et al, 2001b). Here, CDH1 is linked to carcinoma.