SMOC2 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Indeed, the opposite functional effects of SMOC2 have been reported in hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs); Huang et al. reported that SMOC2 over-expression in HepG2 cells inhibited cell proliferation, migration, and invasion25, whereas Su et al. demonstrated that SMOC2 promoted cell proliferation through the cell cycle progression in other HCC cell lines, including MHCC-97H and Huh7 cells13.