VEGFC and hepatocellular carcinoma: As shown in Figure 6, the level of AGK expression in ten freshly collected clinical HCC samples correlated positively with nuclear p65 expression (r = 0.721, P = 0.019) and the mRNA expression levels of the NF-κB downstream genes BCL2-like 1 (BCL2L1; r = 0.927, P < 0.001), X-linked IAP (XIAP; r = 0.867, P = 0.001) and VEGF-C (r = 0.758, P = 0.011).