Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been associated with a variety of malignant carcinoma cells; in particular, E-cadherin is considered an active suppressor of invasion and growth of many cancers.(Wheelock and Johnson 2003; Christofori 2003; Hazan et al. 2004) In the western blot study, we found that knockdown of HULC elevated E-cadherin expression levels and decreased the expression levels of N-cadherin, vimentin and Snail, but these expression levels were reversed when U2OS cells were treated with sh-HULC and miR-372-3p inhibitor or HMGB1 (Fig. 6f). The gene discussed is SNAI1; the disease is cancer.