Clinical samples
Between January and October 2020, HCC tissue samples along with adjacent
normal tissues, situated about 1 cm from the margin of the tumor, were
gathered from 10 patients at the Ningbo Medical Center Li Huili
Hospital, Zhejiang, China. Before undergoing the surgical procedure,
every patient provided their signed informed consent, and the tissue
collection complied with the medical ethics standards of Ningbo Medical
Center Li Huili Hospital (approval no. KY2021PJ188). Importantly, before
the sample collection, none of the patients received any kind of
treatment with chemotherapy or radiation. Five of the samples were from
patients in more advanced stages of HCC (stages III and IV), while the
others were from patients in earlier stages (stages I and II). All
diagnoses were made following the Revised International System for
Staging Liver Cancer [23]. All patients have provided written
informed consent.