TAOK1 and gastric cancer: Gastric carcinogenesis could be due to abnormal proliferation of epithelial cells associated with earlier CagA-induced abnormal intestinal transdifferentiation of cells to produce intestinal metaplasia as an early stage of gastric cancer [45] In addition, PAR1/MARK kinase is one of the six par genes necessary for the asymmetric division of the zygote of C. Elegans [46] and these protein kinases are evolutionarily conserved from yeast to humans.