Identification of Protein-Tyrosine Kinase Genes Preferentially Expressed in Embryo Stomach and Gastric Cancer

For identification of the protein-tyrosine kinases that are expressed in embryo stomach and gastric cancer, a 16-day rat embryo stomach and two human gastric cancer cDNA expression libraries were screened with an anti-phosphotyrosine antibody. Eight cDNAs encoding protein-tyrosine kinase were isolated, and Northern blot analysis revealed that five out of eight clones were highly expressed in rat embryo stomach, but not in adult rat stomach. From nucleotide sequence analysis, these five cDNAs were identified as elk, erk, esk, TTK and fyn, respectively. We report here that the expression levels of two families of receptor type tyrosine kinase genes, elk/erk and esk/TTK are developmentally regulated in rat stomach and highly expressed in human gastric cancer tissues. These findings suggest that elk/erk and esk/TTK genes play important roles in embryonic development and carcinogenesis of the stomach.