We further analyzed the relationship between MTERF3 expression and different clinicopathological parameters, and found that, consistent with TCGA data, MTERF3 expression is positively correlated with TNM stage and displayed higher expression in tumor tissues from patients with advanced HCC (P = 0.046, Table 1 and Supplementary Fig. 1b). This evidence concerns the gene MTERF3 and neoplasm.