Fig. 1: Up-regulation of NPC1 correlates with poor prognosis of HCC.

a–c Upregulation of NPC1 mRNA (a) or protein (b, c) in paired non-tumor tissues (NT) and tumor tissues (T) in TCGA datasets (a) (NT, n = 32; T, n = 375), Jiang et al.’s cohort (b) (NT, n = 98; S-I, n = 36; S-II, n = 32; S-III n = 33) and Gao et al.’s cohort (c) (NT, n = 159; S-Mb, n = 55; S-Me, n = 57; S-Pf, n = 47). d–i Kaplan–Meier overall survival (d, f, h) and disease-free survival (e, g, i) curves of individuals with high or low NPC1 expression in TCGA datasets (d, e), Jiang et al.’s cohort (f, g) and Gao et al.’s cohort (h, i). j Representative IHC staining of TMA with NPC1 antibodies in an independent cohort of HCC (n = 295 biologically independent samples); scale bars, 100 μm. k Staining intensity of NPC1 between NT and T samples from TMA (n = 295 biologically independent samples). l, m Kaplan–Meier overall survival (l) and disease-free survival (m) curves of individuals with high or low NPC1 expression. In the box plots, the middle bar represents the median, and the box represents the interquartile range; bars extend to 1.5× the interquartile range. Data are presented as the mean ± s.e.m. (a, k). Statistical significance was determined by Mann–Whitney U test (a–c, k) or log-rank test (d–i, l, m). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.