Zhao et al. found that when the DNA damage and repair pathway was activated, NEIL3 aggregated heavily to telomeres during mitosis while recruiting APE1 and POLB to telomeric DNA damage sites and then repairing telomeric DNA damage by initiating the BER pathway, thereby promoting proliferation and preventing senescence of HCC cells in vitro [49]. Here, NEIL3 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.