SCHLAFEN 5 expression correlates with intestinal metaplasia that progresses to gastric cancer

Background Intestinal metaplasia (IM) is a gastric cancer precursor lesion (GCPL) and an extremely high risk factor for progression to gastric cancer (GC). Clinical guidelines recommend that patients with extensive IM undergo a gastroscopy every 3 years. However, protein biomarkers that indicate a transition from IM to GC are lacking. Our group recently identified an interferon-alpha (IFNα)-responsive gene, Schlafen 4 (Slfn4), in immune cells that correlates with metaplastic changes in Helicobacter-infected mice. We therefore tested the hypothesis that a human homolog of Slfn4, namely, Schlafen 5 (SLFN5), correlates with progression of GCPL to GC.