library_construction_protocol: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues were flash frozen on dry ice and stored at -80⁰ C. RNA was isolated using the RNeasy Plus Mini Kit (Qiagen) according to manufacturer's instructions (Cat# 74136, Qiagen, MD, USA), followed by quantification using the with Nanodrop 200 Spectrometer (Thermofisher, MA, USA). RNA quality was established using the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, CA, USA). A total of 1 μg of RNA per sample was used for preparation of RNA samples. Sequencing libraries were produced using the NEBNext UltraTM RNA Library Prep Kit (Illumina, CA, USA) according to the manufacturer's instructions and sequencing was performed by Novogene using the Illumina HiSeq 2500 sequencer.