GAST and gastric cancer: One possible mechanism by which gastrin-induced apoptosis results in gastrointestinal cancers was proposed by Houghton et al., through establishment of the Helicobacter felis/C57BL/6 mouse model of gastric cancer, who demonstrated that chronic Helicobacter felis-induced hypergastrinemia stimulates the apoptosis of gastric stem cells, followed by recruitment and repopulation of bone marrow–derived cells in the gastric mucosa.