Interestingly, intrinsic levels of inhibitory Smad7 similarly varied and relative expression strongly correlated with that of TGF-β1 (Pearson correlation, r = 0.87, p = 0.0011) (Figure 2A) increasing in the following order: HCC-M, PLC, HCC-T, HepG2, Hep3B, HuH7, HLE, HLF, FLC-4 and HuH6. This evidence concerns the gene HSPG2 and hepatocellular carcinoma.