Identification of candidate biomarkers that involved in the epigenetic transcriptional regulation for detection gastric cancer by iTRAQ based quantitative proteomic analysis.

•The present iTRAQ quantitative proteomics study identified MTA2 and HDAC1 that were overexpressed in gastric cancer tissues compared with that in adjacent normal tissues.•Coexpression of MTA2 and HDAC1 were significantly overexpressed in gastric cancer tissues (sensitivity 65.3%, and specificity 65.2%).•Coexpression of MTA2 and HDAC1 was tightly associated to lymph node metastasis and TNM stage. Coexpression levels of MTA2 and HDAC1 may serve as useful biomarkers to detect gastric cancer.