Recent studies have shown that MiR-221 can mediate the epithelial-mesenchymal transition of hepatocellular carcinoma by targeting AdipoR1, a discovery that will improve the understanding of the mechanism of EMT progression and provide a new target for molecular therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma point (Li et al. 2017a, b). Here, ADIPOR1 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.