| Summary: | Gastric cancer (GC) is characterized by poor efficacy and the modest clinical impact of current therapies. Apoptosis evasion represents a causative factor for treatment failure in GC as in other cancers. Since intracellular calcium homeostasis regulation has been found to be associated with apoptosis resistance, the aberrant expression of intracellular calcium regulator genes (CaRGs) could have a prognostic value in GC patients. We analyzed the association of the expression levels of 98 CaRGs with prognosis by the log-rank test in a collection of 1524 GC samples from four gene expression profiling datasets. We also evaluated differential gene expression in comparison with normal stomach tissue, and then we crossed results with tissue microarrays from the Human Protein Atlas. Among the investigated CaRGs, patients with high levels of <i>TRPV2</i> expression were characterized by a shorter overall survival. <i>TRPV2</i> expression was found to increase according to tumor stage. Both mRNA and protein levels were significantly higher in tumor than normal stomach samples. <i>TRPV2</i> was also associated with poor prognosis in the Lauren’s intestinal type GC and in patients treated with adjuvant therapy. Overall, we highlighted the relevance of <i>TRPV2</i> not only as a prognostic biomarker but also as a potential therapeutic target to improve GC treatment efficacy.
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