SPINK1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Analysis of TCGA-LIHC data found HCC patients that displayed high expression of the ELF3 + SPINK1 + E2F2 signature exhibited a worst prognosis than those HCC patients with HCC patients with a low expression of the same three gene signature, drawing clinical relevance to further support our functional observations (Fig. 8e and Supplementary Fig. S6g).