BIRC5 and gastric cancer: Katsuno et al. (2012) found that coexpression of aldehyde dehydrogenase one and REG4 was involved in the tumorigenesis of diffuse-type gastric carcinoma, which was blocked by TGF-β. Kuniyasu et al. (2009) found that REG4 overexpression increased levels of Bcl-xL, Bcl-2, survivin, phosphorylated Akt, and EGFR, and decreased nitric oxide-induced apoptosis in gastric cancer cells, in contrast to REG4 silencing. In mice models of gastric cancer, REG4 expression enhanced peritoneal metastasis, weakened apoptosis, and shortened survival time (Miyagawa et al., 2008; Kuniyasu et al., 2009).