In addition to the dramatic phenotypic change, such as loss cell–cell adhesion and profound reorganization of the cytoskeleton (Additional file 1: Fig. S1A), we serendipitously discovered that the nuclear morphology of Huh7 hepatocellular carcinoma cells became abnormally shaped when treated with TGFβ1 (Fig. 1A), concomitant with increases in the expression of mesenchymal markers N-Cadherin and Vimentin (Fig. 1B). Here, CDH2 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.