The results showed the rate of formation rate of H22 tumors in BALB/c mice immunized with STAT3-blocked HCC vaccine was 50%, which was significantly lower than that of the other groups (p < 0.001), while in C57BL/6 mice the tumor formation rate was not affected by immunization with Hepa1–6-based tumor vaccines (Additional file 1: Table S1). The gene discussed is STAT3; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.