Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Establishment and Evaluation of a Risk Prediction Model for Pathological Escalation of Gastric Low-Grade Intraepithelial Neoplasia
Published on: February 16, 2024
Stepwise accumulation of chromosomal copy number variations along the gastritis-carcinoma sequence: implications for
Xingyi Zhang1, Tongyue Zhang1, Ruiwei Shen1
1Department of Gastroenterology, The Affiliated Lihuili Hospital of Ningbo University (Ningbo Medical Center Lihuili Hospital), Ningbo, China.
Background:
Gastric cancer poses a serious threat to public health, and the current screening is of limited efficiency. Chromosomal copy number variation (CNV) is a major driver of gastric carcinogenesis, yet its stepwise evolution along the gastritis-carcinoma sequence remains poorly delineated. Dissecting the dynamic landscape of CNVs may yield crucial biomarkers for early risk stratification.
Methods:
In this study, we performed cost-effective low-coverage whole-genome sequencing (LC-WGS) on 101 gastric mucosal specimens encompassing non-atrophic gastritis (NAG, n = 15), atrophic gastritis (AG, n = 35), high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia or early gastric cancer (HGIN/EGC, n = 33), and advanced gastric cancer (AGC, n = 18).
Results:
The frequency of CNV at both the complete chromosome and chromosomal-arm level showed a stepwise increase along the gastritis-carcinoma sequence. Two novel quantitative indices, MaxZ and CountZ, were developed to respectively measure the magnitude and extent of chromosomal imbalance, both of which correlated strongly with histologic progression (ρ > 0.4, p < 0.001). Recurrent alterations included gains on chromosomes 20, 8q and 7p and losses on chromosomes 4, which accumulated along the sequence and may represent key CNV events underlying malignant transformation. Notably, clustering analysis identified a high-CNV subgroup within AG (n = 5) exhibiting CNV profiles resembling gastric cancer.
Conclusions:
These preliminary CNV signatures suggest potential value for identifying high-risk individuals in precancerous lesions, particularly within AG, and offer an exploratory molecular basis that may inform future early screening and diagnosis of gastric cancer.
Related Concept Videos
Gastritis II: Pathophysiology
Tumor Progression
Colon cancer is one of the best-documented examples of tumor progression. Early mutation in the APC gene in colon cells causes a small growth on the colon wall called a polyp. With time, this polyp grows into a benign, pre-cancerous tumor. Further...
Cancers Originate from Somatic Mutations in a Single Cell
Comparing Copy Number Variations and SNPs
Copy number variations or CNVs are the structural variations that cover more than 1kb of DNA sequence. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), on the other hand, is a single nucleotide change or a point mutation that is found in more than 1%...
Barrett Esophagus-I: Introduction
This constant acid exposure transforms the esophagus's pink mucosal lining (stratified squamous epithelium) into a type of lining more similar...

