HPN and hepatocellular carcinoma: Furthermore, apart from evaluation in in our discovery cohort, expression of HPN, its correlation with prognosis in HCC, and the status of different tumor-infiltrating immune cells based on expression of specific markers were also comprehensively validated by experimental research and database surveys from ONCOMINE, Kaplan–Meier plotter, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA), and the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) databases.