At 48 hpi, HepG2 cells exhibited a 15-fold increase in AQP3 mRNA expression (p = 0.001, two-tailed Student’s t-test; n = 3 independent experiments) and HuH7 cells, an alternate human hepatoma cell line, had a 4-fold increase in AQP3 expression compared to uninfected HuH7 cells (p = 0.0075, two-tailed Student’s t-test; n = 4 independent experiments). Here, AQP3 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.