Fig. 1

Upregulated HERC2 was associated with the progression and poor prognosis of HCC. A-C Isolated human hepatocytes were treated with 50 ng/ml IL-6 for 20 min, followed by RNA-sequencing analysis. A Volcano blot displaying twofold change differential genes post IL-6 treatment. B Venn diagram exhibiting common differential genes between twofold change differential genes post IL-6 treatment and genes involved in the cell cycle pathway based on reactome enrichment. Heatmap displayed the expression of common differentially expressed genes in human primary hepatocytes. C 3-D dot plot and bubble diagram displaying significance, fold change, and abundance of indicated genes. D Violin plot showing the HERC2 expression in tumor tissues with different immune subtypes based on TCGA dataset (n = 362). E Expression levels of HERC2 in normal livers (n = 50) and HCC livers (n = 369) based on TCGA datasets. F Expression levels of HERC2 in cirrhotic livers (n = 40) and HCC livers (n = 268) in the GSE25097 dataset. G Expression levels of HERC2 in the tumor area and adjacent nontumor area (n = 198) in HCC patients according to GSE14520 datasets. H Immunohistochemical analysis of HERC2 expression in healthy livers and HCC livers, scale bars (left) = 100 μm, scale bars (right) = 25 μm. I Proportion of high HERC2 expression and low HERC2 expression in tumor or non-tumor liver tissues (n = 198) based on GSE14520 datasets. J Proportion of high HERC2 expression and low HERC2 expression in HCC patients with low serum AFP levels (n = 106) or high AFP levels (n = 94) based on GSE14520 datasets. (K) Cox regression analysis of HCC patients with high HERC2 expression (n = 122) and low HERC2 expression (n = 81) based on GSE14520 datasets. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Data from one representative experiment of three independent experiments are presented