LGALS3 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Gal-1, Gal-3 and Gal-4 are up-regulated in HCC cells, whereas Gal-8 and Gal-9 are down-regulated in tumor hepatocytes  (Wu et al., 2012; Jiang et al., 2014; Cai et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2012).