VIM and hepatocellular carcinoma: Supporting these in vitro findings, the mRNA levels of CCL8 in tumor-infiltrating monocytes were found to have some positive correlation with those of VIM and some negative association with those of CDH1 in cancer cells derived from patients with HCC (Figure 6, H and I), and the mRNA levels of CCL8 in tumor-infiltrating monocytes were also positively correlated with the metastatic potential of HCC patients (P = 0.002; Supplemental Table 3).