Clinical and molecular aspects of miR-200 family in gastric cancer

Gastric cancer, like all tumors, is a complex disease in which many predisposing and triggering factors, both environmental and genetic, are summed and combined until the development of the malignancy. Among the genetic causes and modifiers of the clinical course of gastric cancer, microRNAs (miRNAs) as wide-spectrum post-transcriptional regulators, play a central role. Their special characteristics, i.e., their tissue-, and even cell-type-, specificity, their stability in different biological fluids, and their deregulation during tumorigenesis, make to miRNAs the focus of a huge amount of studies searching for their application as potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets in cancer.