SDK1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Based upon our methylation and expression analyses, we observed a potential functional role of hypomethylation in 12 HCV-HCC dmREs that downregulated their proximal genes (PTPRN2, SDK1, MTRR, MROH5, TSNARE1, SNTG2, MTUS2, and PRRC2A), many of which were previously associated with HCC.