APEX1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: All showed an up-regulation of APE1/Ref-1 in HCC with HCC/DLC ratio >1 (Fig 1C), while only 57.8% of subjects presented an up-regulation in cirrhosis as compared to NL (Fig 1C) indicating that transcriptional up regulation of APEX1 gene is always present in HCC and in more than half of cirrhotic samples.