Of note, in none of the conditions of study was IL-6 exposure able to induce statistically significant changes at the mRNA expression level of genes related to DNA methylation/demethylation (Figure 4b).Combined, these data shows the ability of TGF-β (in contrast to IL-6) to induce a stable de novo fraction of CD133-expressing cells in two independent liver cancer cell lines. This evidence concerns the gene IL6 and liver cancer.