HGF and hepatocellular carcinoma: 19 reporting that HGF up‐regulated Snail and induced EMT in HCC cells. We also found that HGF increased Snail protein levels dose‐dependently after 3 h of incubation (Fig. 2E). The time‐course analysis shows that HGF started to increased Snail expression at 1 h after stimulation. The protein level of Snail recovered to the baseline at 6 h in HepG2 cells; however, the Snail level did not decrease in SMMC‐7721 cells, even at 24 h (Fig. 2F).