MELK and hepatocellular carcinoma: Furthermore, the 17 hub genes were subjected to disease-free survival (DFS) analysis using KM plotter, and the up-regulated 15 hub genes (AURKA, CCNA2, CDC20, CENPF, FOXM1, HMMR, KIF20A, MELK, OIP5, PRC1, PTTG1, TOP2A, TPX2, TRIP13 and UBE2C) were correlated with shorter DFS of HCC patients (Figure 5).