Interestingly, signaling pathways related to cell proliferation and invasiveness, such as mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), ErbB, G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), and membrane integrity-related pathways, such as those involving actin cytoskeleton, axon guidance and adhesion, were significantly associated with recurrence in our HBV-HCC dataset (Figure 4F and Additional file 3: Table S3). Here, WNK2 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.