For understanding the impact of HCV infection on the apoptotic machinery during disease progression, we studied the expression patterns of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Bak, Fas, FasL in HCV- genotype-4 infected HepG2 cell line as well as in human tissue samples obtained from patients with HCC and CH as a result of chronic HCV infection. This evidence concerns the gene BCL2L1 and hepatocellular carcinoma.