STAT3 and gastric cancer: You et al. found that IL-26 could promote proliferation and suppress apoptosis in human gastric cancer cells by increasing the expression of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, and c-Myc, which are associated with STAT3 activation [56], whereas Kanai et al. found that differentiation-inducing factor-1 (DIF-1) suppressed gastric cancer cell proliferation by inhibiting STAT3 activity in a MEK/ERK-dependent manner [57].