CLOCK and hepatocellular carcinoma: In the core oscillator, NPAS2/BMAL1 heterodimer directly binds to the E-box and thus drive transcription of a number of clock genes.30, 31 In this study, we demonstrated that BMAL1 knockdown robustly reduced the expression of CDC25A and phenocopied the functional role of NPAS2 in HCC cell survival, indicating the importance of NPAS2/BMAL1 heterodimer in HCC progression.