Fig. 1

CRBP-1 high expression is associated with a better outcome for HCC patients. (A) The mRNA expression of CRBP-1 in normal liver tissue samples (n = 50) and HCC tissue samples (n = 374), data was obtained from TCGA. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to evaluate the significance for CRBP-1 expression in normal and HCC samples, data shown represent box and whisker plots (bar = median, box = interquartile range, whiskers = 10–90 percentile). (B) The protein expression of CRBP-1 in HCC tissue samples (T) and their matched para-carcinoma tissues (P) was detected by using western-blot. (C) Immunohistolochemical analysis of CRBP-1 protein expression in HCC tissue microarray sliders. Representative images of low expression (upper, n = 70) and high expression (under, n = 34) of CRBP-1 in HCC tissue samples. (D) The analysis of correlation between CRBP-1 expression in HCC tissue samples and tumor size. Data was obtained from 104 HCC patients, and the expression level of CRBP-1 was detected by immunohistolochemical analysis. Two-sided Fisher’s exact test was used to evaluate the significance, and p < 0.05 was considered to be significant. (E and F) Kaplan-Meier analysis of CRBP-1 expression was performed on the overall survival and recurrence free survival of 104 HCC patients. Log-rank test was used to evaluate the significance, and p < 0.05 was considered to be significant