To elucidate the mechanism responsible for the inhibitory roles of SALL4 knockdown in gastric cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion, we detected the expression of stemness and EMT-related genes since SALL4 has been previously suggested as a stemness and EMT regulator.25 The results of quantitative RT-PCR and western blot showed that SALL4 knockdown downregulated the expression of Oct4, Sox2, Nanog and c-Myc (Figures 3a and b), which have been previously shown to be the downstream targets of SALL4. Here, POU5F1 is linked to gastric cancer.