Here, we scrutinized the potential signaling pathways of IL-17 action in HCC cells and found that IL-17 had no effect on p38 MAPK, ERK, JNK and p65 NF-κB activation in Huh7 and SMMC7721 cells (Additional file 2, Figure S2B). Here, MAPK8 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.