Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression and clinical significance of zinc finger protein 217(ZNF217)in human gastric cancer. Methods Total 58 cases of gastric cancer tissues and the corresponding tumor-adjacent normal tissues,and 30 cases of gastric mucosa which were suspected as gastric cancer but refused by biopsy pathology between March 2013 and July 2014 were collected.Real-time quantitative PCR(qRT-PCR)was applied to detect ZNF217 mRNA expression in tissues(n=58),the protein expression of ZNF217 was measured by immunohistochemistry(IHC).The relationship between the expression of ZNF217 and clinical features was analyzed by Pearson chi-square test. Results The expression level of ZNF217 mRNA was significantly higher in gastric cancer(6.911±0.139) tissues than in adjacent normal tissues(1.372±0.205),P＜0.001.The protein expression of ZNF217 was also higher in gastric cancer tissues(χ²=39.910,P＜0.001),the high expression of ZNF217 protein was positively correlated with large tumor size(χ²=5.810,P=0.016),lymphatic metastasis(χ²=5.778,P=0.016) and advanced TNM stage(χ²=4.806,P=0.028).ROC curves demonstrated that ZNF217 expression status had a high value for gastric cancer diagnosis. Conclusion The expression of ZNF217 is significantly higher in gastric cancer tissues than in tumor-adjacent normal tissues,and the up-regulation of ZNF217 is associated with clinicopathological features of tumor malignance.ZNF217 may become a new marker and effective therapeutic target in early diagnosis of gastric cancer.