-: No statistical comparison was performed between groups. HCC: hepatocellular carcinoma; SE: standard error; BMI: body mass index; NS: non-significant; AST: aspartate aminotransferase; ALT: alanine aminotransferase; ALP: alkaline phosphatase; γGT: gamma-glutamyltransferase; PT: prothrombin time; INR: international normalized ratio; AFP: alpha-fetoprotein.
Declarations
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to all the HCC patients/healthy volunteers who participated in this study. The authors thank Dr Amit Kumar Ram and Dr Devanatha Desikan for their contribution in performing western blotting and statistical analysis, respectively.
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Ethical approval
This study was reviewed and approved by the JIPMER Post-Graduate Monitoring Committee (PGRMC) and the Institute Ethics Committee (IEC) for human studies (JIP/IEC/2018/0282).
Consent to participate
Written informed consent was obtained from all the participants to participate in the study.
Consent to publication
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
Data will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.
Funding
This work was supported by the JIPMER intramural research grant [JIP/Res/Intramural/0282/2018-19]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Open Exploration maintains a neutral stance on jurisdictional claims in published institutional affiliations and maps. All opinions expressed in this article are the personal views of the author(s) and do not represent the stance of the editorial team or the publisher.
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