MAD2L1 was reported to exert oncogenic effects in gastric cancer (Wang et al., 2019b) and lung cancer (Guo et al., 2010), as well as HCC by regulating the malignant behaviors of tumor cells (Foijer et al., 2017; Li, Bai & Zhang, 2017). Here, MAD2L1 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.