These findings have been partially verified in previous studies; for instance, the downregulation of EGFL8 expression in gastric cancer was clearly associated with distant metastasis and invasion of lymphoid nodes (Wu et al., 2011a; Song et al., 2015), whereas the migration and invasion ability of gastric cancer cells was enhanced because of the overexpression of EGFL7 in gastric cancer and the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process is also promoted (Luo et al., 2014). The gene discussed is EGFL7; the disease is gastric cancer.