Protein classes closely associated with HCC such as cytoskeletal proteins, RNA metabolism proteins and scaffold/adaptor proteins also showed stronger expression in 3D cultures (c3T3 14%, cAML 32% and cBoth 17%) compared to 2D culture (c3T3 4.4%, cAML1.70%, cBoth 4.4%) indicating that 3D culture supports stronger protein expression patterns. The gene discussed is L1CAM; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.