By using immunohistochemistry, the expression of TfR1 and TfR2 is significantly higher in human HCC tissues than in adjacent non-tumor tissues (Sakurai et al., 2014), suggesting that TfR1 and TfR2 are expressed in response to iron deficiency during liver carcinogenesis (Sakurai et al., 2014). Here, TFR2 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.