Although “loss of heterozygosity” of tumour suppressor genes is a commonly observed step in tumourigenesis, there was no “loss of heterozygosity” of the MIR122 gene in HepG2 cells: two different alleles were detected at 10 SNPs spanning the 6078 bp genomic region spanning the pri-mir-122 promoter and the pre-mir-122 stem-loop region [29]. Here, MIR122 is linked to neoplasm.