VEGFA and hepatocellular carcinoma: We found that the expression of VEGF in the HCC mono-culture group (241.97 ± 78.56) was significantly higher than in the MRC-5 mono-culture (12.69 ± 5.46) and the macrophage mono-culture (13.65 ± 7.44) groups (n = 3, P < 0.05, Table 4 and Fig 2A).