SAE1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Against the background of reported implication of SAE1 in SUMOylation and oncogenesis in several malignancies, including glioma and gastric cancer [11,12], and aiming to validate its clinical validity and applicability as a reliable diagnostic and/or prognostic biomarker, the present study explored the expression and of SAE1, an indispensable molecular effector of SUMOylation [22], by probing and analyzing clinicopathological data from our in-house HCC cohort and several HCC databases.