Survival analysis based on the RNA sequencing expression data of the HCC patients (n = 369) from the TCGA database was performed first and the results indicated that patients with higher STOML2 expression had remarkably worse overall survival (OS, P = 0.011) and disease-free survival (DFS, P = 0.029) (Additional file 3: Figure S1B-C) [23]. Here, STOML2 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.