Epigenetics of gastric cancer.

Epigenetic changes frequently occur in human gastric cancer. Gene promoter region hypermethylation, genomic global hypomethylation, histone modifications, and alterations of noncoding RNAs are major epigenetic changes in gastric cancer. As a key risk factor of gastric cancer, H. pylori infection is an independent predictive indicator of gene methylation. A growing number of epigenetic studies in gastric cancer have provided lots of potential diagnostic and prognostic markers and therapeutic targets.