The statistical analyses demonstrated that the relative mRNA levels of ADAMTS1 were significantly lower in the methylated gastric cancer cell lines, compared with the unmethylated gastric cancer cell lines (P=0.036; Fig. 2B) Furthermore, the promoter methylation sequence of ADAMTS1 was detected following treatment with sodium bisulfate in the methylated MGC-803 cell line, and all the CG bases remained as CG bases, which confirmed that the ADAMTS1 promoter was hypermethylated in the MGC-803 cell line (Fig. 2C). The gene discussed is ADAMTS1; the disease is gastric cancer.