S100A8 and gastric cancer: Accordingly, East Asian CagA exhibits a stronger ability to bind/deregulate SHP2 and a greater capability to induce SHP2-dependent morphological changes in gastric epithelial cells than Western CagA.70,136 Collectively, the findings reveal that the East Asian CagA-specific EPIpYA-D motif is qualitatively very different from the Western CagA-specific EPIpYA-C motif in terms of the biological activity required for deregulation of the SHP2 oncoprotein, which may causatively account for the higher incidence of gastric cancers in East Asian countries than in Western countries.