TERT and hepatocellular carcinoma: Sequencing of the TERT gene from 120 HCC patients revealed four non-synonymous TERT heterozygous variants: A243V, T726M, A1062T, and V1090M from four unrelated patients (Fig 2A, Table 2), demonstrating a significantly higher mutation carrier frequency in HCC patients (3.3%) as compared to 198 healthy subjects (p = 0.02, by Fisher’s exact test) previously screened for TERT gene variants in Calado et al. [25].