PIWIL2 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Aberrant PIWIL2 expression has been implicated in promoting proliferation in HCC and other cancers [19, 31], with its tumorigenic functions mediated through interactions with HDAC3, NME2, β-catenin (CTNNB1), and others via the PIWI and MID domains [19, 21, 28, 32].