Gastric cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer and the second cause of cancer‑related mortalities worldwide despite the use of multimodal therapy. Cadherins are transmembrane glycoproteins that are involved in tumorigenesis. CDH17 has been found to be over‑expressed in gastric cancer and its overexpression was associated with lymph node metastasis and tumor‑node‑metastasis stage of the patients, yet the exact role and molecular mechanism of CDH17 in gastric cancer have not been determined. Using a lentiviral system as a delivery mediator of RNA interference, we found that inhibition of CDH17 can lead to reduce proliferation and increase apoptosis of gastric cancer cell line MKN28 in vitro and significantly diminish their tumorigenicity in vivo. Our results of the present study suggest that CDH17 may be a promising candidate for the therapeutic targeting of gastric cancer.