Calreticulin (CALR/CRT) and HMGB1 expression (Fig. 3d–f), especially that the upregulated extracellular expression of CRT and HMGB1 (Fig. 3g, Additional file 1: Fig. S4b), indicated that while heat treatment and MELK knockdown alone can effectively induce liver cancer cell apoptosis and ICD, combining them has an even more pronounced effect, which may partly explain why MELK knockdown can further enhance the inhibition of tumor cell growth caused by thermal ablation in liver cancer. Here, MELK is linked to liver cancer.