In the present study, our results demonstrated that the expressions of miR-21, Akt and p-Akt were significantly higher in the 83 GC tissues than those in adjacent normal tissues, but the expression of PTEN was significantly lower than that in adjacent normal tissue, which indicated that the expressions of miR-21, Akt, p-Akt and PTEN were related to GC. This evidence concerns the gene PTEN and gastric cancer.