BMI1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: The results of the sphere formation assay revealed that all of the above genes supported the maintenance of stemness properties in HCC cells (Figure 6G), and the detection of stemness marker genes suggested that BMI1, CCR3, CDC25C, and RAC1 maintained the stemness of LM3 and MHCC-97H cells by upregulating stemness transcription factors (Figure 6H).