RUNX3 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Sagawa et al. (2015) showed that BEX1 was upregulated in Cx32ΔTg rat liver, and knockdown of BEX1 could significantly inhibit the growth of rat hepatoma cell lines. In human HCC studies, Wang et al. (2021) discovered that BEX1 is an oncofetal protein that interacts with RUNX family transcription factor 3 (RUNX3) in hepatoblastoma (HB) and CSC-HCC to block β-catenin transcription and activate the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, thereby regulating the self-renewal of hepatic CSCs.