Bergmann and colleagues found that only IL-6 trans-signaling is essential to promote HCC development via preventing DNA-damage-induced hepatocyte apoptosis and inducing endothelial cell proliferation to promote tumor angiogenesis.[13] Moreover, in patients with HCC, increased IL-6 levels could be observed.[14,15] Single nucleotide polymorphisms of non-coding promoter sequence in IL-6 gene will impact the expression of IL-6, which was considered to be associated with the susceptibility of HCC. The gene discussed is IL6; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.