MAPK1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To test the hypothesis that high levels of MTBP are associated with increased cytoplasmic p-Erk in HCC tissues, we scored subcellular localization of p-Erk as cytoplasm (C)>nucleus (N) vs C≤N, along with MTBP expression levels which were categorized as low (<3) vs high (≥3) scores, using both primary and metastatic HCC tissues.