Fig. 6

IER3 expression is related to HCC prognosis. a IER3 expression in primary HCC tissue arrays was assessed via IHC, with representative images of tumors in different staining categories and adjacent normal tissue samples being shown. H&E and IHC staining were conducted by Shanghai Outdo Biotech Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China), and were used to evaluate tumor area. b IHC scores were determined based upon the percentage of IER3-positive cells as a fraction of total tumor cells. Staining intensity was scored from 1–4, with scores of 1–2 indicating low IER3 expression and scores of 3–4 indicating high expression. Scale bars = 100 μm. c IER3 expression in matched primary tumor and tumor adjacent normal (TAN) tissue samples from HCC patients was evaluated via IHC. d The overall survival (OS) of 90 HCC patients with high (score: 3–4) and low (score: 1–2) IER3 IHC staining scores was assessed via the Kaplan–Meier method. *P < 0.05