SQSTM1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To further explore this issue, we first examined how frequently the p62-Keap1-Nrf2 axis is activated in liver tumors of one-year-old NEMOLPC-KO p62ΔEx2-5 mice, which showed higher HCC burden, by performing IHC analysis of p62 and NQO1 expression (Figure 6A).