The KEGG pathway analysis (Fig. 2A) showed that the target genes were mainly associated with pathways related with immunity and inflammation, such as cancer (prostate, bladder, colorectal, small cell lung, and pancreatic), hepatitis B and apoptosis, and a variety of signaling-related pathways, such as HIF-1α, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), VEGF, mTOR, Forkhead box O (FOXO), PI3K-AKT, nuclear factor (NF)-κB, and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptor. Here, VEGFA is linked to hepatitis B virus infection.