According to a recent study by Bevant et al., exposing a mesenchymal-like HCC cell line SNU-449 to decitabine, a clinically relevant demethylating agent, impairs transcriptional responses and suppresses the expression of critical modulators of tumor-suppressive canonical TGF-β signaling (e.g., Serpine1, Smad4, TGF-β1, and Col1a1) while augmenting the levels of EMT-related transcription factors (e.g., Snail, Slug, Zeb1, and Zeb2) [209]. Here, SMAD4 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.