Fig. 1

Expression of TH in HCC tissues was down-regulated. A Relative mRNA levels of TH in normal hepatic cells ((HHL5) and HCC cell lines (Huh7, 7404, QGY7701, PVTT, MHCC97H, and QGY) was quantified by qPCR, normal hepatic cells ((HHL5) acts as the statistical comparison. **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001. B qPCR was used to quantify the TH mRNA levels in 65 HCC tissues and adjacent normal tissues. Paired t test was used to analyze. ****P < 0.0001. C Pie chart illustrates the comparative mRNA levels in 65 HCC tissues as compared to their corresponding adjacent non-tumor tissues. “Low”, lower TH mRNA level in tumor; “High”, higher TH mRNA level in tumor; “NS”, no significance. D, E Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the protein expression of TH in tumor tissues and adjacent non-tumor tissues (D), quantified H-score for TH expression in 198 HCC tissues and relative adjacent non-tumor tissues was shown (E). ****P < 0.0001. F Pie chart displays the proportion of HCC tissues that have either higher or lower TH protein levels in comparison to the corresponding non-tumor tissues. G Western blotting was used to detect the protein level of TH in 17 HCC samples and their matched non-tumor tissues. H Conducting an analysis to reveal the correlation between the protein expression of TH and the overall survival of 198 patients diagnosed with HCC. I Kaplan–Meier Plotter database was utilized to analyze the relevance between TH mRNA expression and overall and recurrence-free survival in HCC patients