Although GATA4 has previously been shown to activate certain liver-related genes in hepatoma cell lines [30-33], our transcriptome and ChIP-sequencing analyses suggest that GATA4 also functions as a repressor at a small number of genes, which is not surprising in light of other GATA factors capable of activating and repressing gene transcription [16,50,61]. This evidence concerns the gene GATA4 and hepatocellular carcinoma.