Our previous studies have also revealed that monocytes/Mφs in the peritumoral region of HCC could effectively suppress tumor-specific T cell immunity via PD-L1-PD1 and induce cancer cell autophagy in the invading edge region by secreting TNF-α and IL-1β, which resulted in epithelial-mesenchymal transition of cancer cells and tumor metastasis (11, 13). Here, TNF is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.