SPP1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To characterize the temporal status of vascular endothelial cells during HCC development, we used Monocle to rearrange individual cells into a pseudo-timeline, and the results demonstrated the homogeneous progression of endothelial cells to hepatic malignant cells (Figures 4I, J), and showed the SPP1 expression at different developmental nodes of hepatocytes (Figure 4K).