LGALS3 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Previous studies have shown that galectins play important roles in HCC,e.g., galectin-1 and galectin-3 were increased in HCC cells, compared with their normal counterparts, and the overexpression of galectin-1 and galectin-3 was significantly associated with a poor overall survival and might be considered as predictive prognostic factors[17–18].