CD44 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To determine whether HOXA11-AS was also expressed at a high level in HCC stem cells, CD133+/− and CD44+/− cells were sorted from Hep3B and Huh7 cells by flow cytometry (Fig. 1f), and tumorsphere formation was employed to enrich HCC stem cells in Hep3B and Huh7 spheres.