Human sample collection
The peripheral blood and tissue samples of 30 cases
pathologically-diagnosed with HCC in the General Surgery Department at
Tianjin Medical University General Hospital were collected prior to
surgery from October 2015 to July
2017. Tumor tissues and paired non-tumor control tissues were at
distances > 5 cm. All specimens were divided into two
aliquots: one aliquot was frozen at −80 °C for protein extraction; and
the other specimen was fixed with 4% formalin for immunohistochemical
(IHC) detection. Peripheral venous blood (2–3ml) were obtained from 20
volunteers who served as healthy controls. The study was planned
according to the ethical guidelines following the Declaration of
Helsinki. This project was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tianjin
Medical University General Hospital. All subjects gave informed consent
prior to enrollment in the investigation.