HRC and gastric cancer: To verify the expression of HRC protein in GC, we first assessed its expression in the tumorous and adjacent normal gastric mucosal tissues from seven GC patients (Fig. 1A), in the GES-1 cell line (normal gastric epithelial cell line), and in GC cell lines (AGS, MKN-45, and MGC-803) (Fig. 1B) using western blotting.