Finally, since in liver tissue HBV infection not only transforms host cell hepatocytes and activates HSC through viral antigens (Martin-Vilchez et al., 2008; Zan et al., 2013; Gong et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2020) and possibly through ENPP2 from hepatocytes (Kaffe et al., 2017), we analyzed the role of activated HSC (aHSC) in HBV-related HCC progression. This evidence concerns the gene ENPP2 and hepatocellular carcinoma.