Objective  This study evaluates the expression of Glil in Sonic hedgehog signal pathway and Foxml in gastric cancer, and elucidates the potential relationship of Glil and Foxml expression with clinical pathological characteristics.

  Methods  The expression of Glil and Foxml in 70 gastric carcinoma tissues and 30 non-cancerous stomach tissues was detected through immunohistochemistry and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. The relationship between Glil and Foxml was also analyzed.

  Results  Glil and Foxml were either unexpressed or showed low expression in normal tissue. That is, Glil and Foxml expression was obviously higher in gastric cancer tissue than in normal tissue. The high expression of Glil mRNA and protein in gastric cancer was positively correlated with the differentiation of gastric cancer and lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05), whereas that of Foxml was only positively correlated with lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05). Glil and Foxml expression exhibited no correlation with patients' age, gender, tumor size, or depth of invasion (P > 0.05). A positive correlation was found between Gli 1 and Foxml expression (r = 0.897; P < 0.05).

  Conclusion  The overexpression of Gli 1 and Foxm 1 plays important roles in the pathogenesis of gastric cancer. In addition, the positive correlation between Gli 1 and Foxml proves their synergetic and mutual regulation in the occurrence and development of gastric cancer. The joint detection of Gli 1 and Foxm 1 may be of important clinical significance for tumor prognosis and may provide some experimental and clinical evidence for drug development and gastric carcinoma treatment.