These cells are stimulated by the hormones gastrin (not depicted in the adjacent diagram) and pituitary adenylyl cyclase-activating peptide.

Histamine and gastrin act synergistically as the most important stimulators of hydrochloric acid secretion from parietal cells and stimulators of secretion of pepsinogen from chief cells.

Enterochromaffin-like cells also produce pancreastatin and probably other peptide hormones and growth factors.

This is especially important in gastrinoma (the tumors in which there is an excessive secretion of gastrin), as this is one of the factors contributing to Zollinger–Ellison's syndrome.

It was once believed that tumors of ECL origin form after a prolonged inhibition of gastric acid secretion, however there is no data to support this conclusion and proton pump inhibitors are not thought to contribute to gastric cancer.