KRT19 and hepatocellular carcinoma: KRT19 was known as a potential biomarker for cholangiocytes, hepatic progenitor cells, and early hepatoblasts, which have been linked with a poor prognosis and metastasis for patients diagnosed with HCC.17 We conducted the experiment to detect KRT19 expression in the 150 samples described above by RT-PCR, IHC, and western blotting.