To investigate whether CD36+ CAFs can educate MDSCs to potentiate their stemness-enhancing capacity via paracrine signaling, tumorsphere assays were performed and showed that CD36+ CAF-MDSC-CM, but not CD36kd CAFs-MDSC-CM, drastically promoted tumorsphere formation efficiencies in HCC cell lines, whereas stimulation with CM from CD36+ CAFs or CD33+ MDSCs caused only mild effects (Supplementary Fig. S9j, k). This evidence concerns the gene CD36 and hepatocellular carcinoma.