NCSTN and hepatocellular carcinoma: The results of hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining and IHC staining of Ki-67 showed decreased size and number of intrahepatic metastatic foci in HCCLM3-shNCSTN-2 and Hep3B-Vector group, indicating that NCSTN remarkably promoted intrahepatic metastasis ability of HCC cells (Fig. 3e-f and Additional file 5: Fig. S2a-b).