The findings from this study confirmed a previous report by Endo et al. (2013) [11], which showed that typically BRG1 is not expressed in the nuclei of normal hepatocytes but in the nuclei of bile duct epithelial cells and in malignant transformed HCC cells (Figs 1C, 1D and 2A–2J). This evidence concerns the gene SMARCA4 and hepatocellular carcinoma.