Evaluation of the gene dependency score (z score) over 22 HCC cell line models in the genome-wide CRISPR screen database (DepMap; The Cancer Dependency Map Project, Broad Institute; data S3) (19, 20) revealed that five of these candidate genes (WDR5, SMC1A, DDX23, SF3A1, and EFTUD2) are crucial in HCC (Fig. 1C; median z score ≤ −1). This evidence concerns the gene EFTUD2 and hepatocellular carcinoma.