Genomic qPCR screening detected KRAS amplification in two additional gastric cancer cell lines, SH101P4 (18-fold) and MKN1 (13-fold) (Figure 3a), whereas we did not detect amplification of greater than 4-fold in 17 other gastric cancer cell lines, or in 10 colon cancer and 11 pancreatic cancer cell lines (listed in Additional file 1, data not shown). This evidence concerns the gene KRAS and colonic neoplasm.