Gastrin-17

Where it comes from

Made in

G cells of the gastric antrum and duodenum

Sent out by

Protein in the stomach, stretch of the stomach wall and vagal signals; acid in the antrum shuts it off

Acts on

• Enterochromaffin-like cells (histamine release)
• Parietal cells
• Gastric lining (growth)

What it does

• Drives acid secretion, mostly through histamine
• Makes the acid-producing lining grow ¹
• Rises when acid is suppressed by proton-pump inhibitors or lost in atrophic gastritis ¹

In medicine

• Measured for gastrinoma (Zollinger-Ellison syndrome), where it runs very high
• Pentagastrin, a synthetic fragment, was the acid-secretion test and a provocation test for medullary thyroid cancer; it is no longer made
• Netazepide, a gastrin receptor blocker, has shrunk gastric neuroendocrine tumours in small trials ²

Beyond the body’s own use

• Long-term proton-pump inhibitors raise gastrin several-fold. What that does to the stomach lining is still studied, and the moderate rises seen in practice have not been shown to cause cancer in people ¹
• Netazepide cleared every tumour in five of the patients in a year-long open trial in autoimmune atrophic gastritis, and the tumours grew back when it was stopped ²; it is not approved
• A gastrin vaccine, G17DT, was taken into a randomised trial in 154 people with advanced pancreatic cancer and did not improve survival; it was never approved ³