To investigate the functional relevance of TIA1 in HCC, the proliferation of transformed hepatic cancer cells, which express very high levels of TIA1 as compared to primary hepatocytes (Supplementary Figure S1F,G), was investigated following TIA1 downregulation by specific siRNA (the efficiency of TIA1 silencing was evaluated by Western blot: see validation blot, Supplementary Materials and Methods). Here, TIA1 is linked to liver cancer.