TGFB1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: TGF-β plays a tumor suppressive role in normal epithelia, but accelerates the progression through enhancing cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in cancer cells [24-27], and our recent study reveals that MUC1 induces autocrine TGF-β in HCC cells [23], which suggests that a novel mechanism for MUC1 may promote the migration and invasion of HCC cells via TGF-β signaling.