COL1A1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Our results revealed that COL1A1 is strongly associated with and is a probable bridge between the metastatic and CSCs-like phenotypes of HCC (Figure 4), which is particularly interesting and bears translational relevance against the background that metastatic disease is implicated in over 90% of cancer related mortalities, and in the light of the role of CSCs in the self-renewal of cancerous cells, resistance to anti-cancer therapy, metastatic dissemination to secondary sites and disease recurrence [36].