The data showed that the expression of STOML2 in HCC was much higher than the adjacent non-tumor liver tissues on both mRNA and protein levels (Fig. 1a–e), which is identical to the statistical results of evaluated analyzing the mRNA expression level of STOML2 by the GEPIA database (Additional file 3: Figure S1A) [22]. This evidence concerns the gene STOML2 and hepatocellular carcinoma.