By immunostaining, the coexpression of ILK and phosphorylated NF-κB (Ser536) was observed in human and mouse gastric tissues (Figure 1D), and their coexpression significantly (P <0.01) and positively correlated with the number of proliferating cells, which is indicated by 55 triple-positive cases of the total 93 gastric cancer specimens (Figure 1E; Additional file 4: Figure S3). This evidence concerns the gene ILK and gastric cancer.