TP53 and cancer: Wang XW55 proposed that HBx protein can modify p53 conformation by developing HBx–p53 complex, and thereby inhibiting p53 to bind to its DNA consensus sequence, which was similar to p53 missense mutants in human cancers; hence, they considered that it might be a possible mechanism that hepatocytes would differentiate into hepatoma cells, because the p53-dependent damaged DNA repairing pathway was blocked, and the functions of key tumor-suppressor genes of hepatocytes were abolished56.