**Author details**

reaction and toxicity mechanisms, have not been elucidated. Second, although the activation of aflatoxins is found to act as a crucial step, it is unclear how the tumorigenesis of hepatocarcinoma is triggered by aflatoxins. Third, the vast literature for aflatoxin-induced hepatocarcinoma mainly focuses on the studies on AFB1, and some important information may have been lost. Fourth, in spite of some evidence of AFB1 inducing abnormal immunoreaction and interacting with hepatitis virus and genetic factors, they are at the primary stage and still far from elucidation. Therefore, the detailed toxicity mechanisms of aflatoxins and corresponding carcinogenesis mechanism will greatly benefit our understanding of aflatoxin-related hepatocarcinoma.

It has been shown that increasing exposure of aflatoxins may promote the carcinogenesis of hepatocarcinoma. Molecular mechanisms of aflatoxin-induced hepatocarcinoma involve in DNA damage, gene mutations, the inactivation of such tumor suppressor gene as TP53, the activation of proto-oncogenes, abnormal immunoreaction, and the interaction between aflatoxins and other carcinogens such as HBV. However, an understanding of aflatoxin-induced hepatocarcinoma is far from complete, and further research in this field is looked forward to elucidating more detailed mechanisms responsible for hepatocarcinoma related to aflatoxins in the future.

The authors declare no competing financial interests. This study was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81760502, 81572353, 81372639, 81472243, 81660495, and 81460423), the Innovation Program of Guangxi Municipal Education Department (Nos. 201204LX674 and 201204LX324), Innovation Program of Guangxi Health Department (No. Z2013781), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi (Nos. 2017GXNSFGA198002, 2017JJF10001, 2017GXNSFAA198002, 2016GXNSFDA380003, 2015GXNSFAA139223, 2013GXNSFAA019251, 2014GXNSFDA118021, and 2014GXNSFAA118144), Research Program of Guangxi "Zhouyue Scholar" (No. 2017-38), Research Program of Guangxi Specially-invited Expert (No. 2017-6th), Research Program of Guangxi Clinic Research Center of Hepatobiliary Diseases (No. AD17129025), and Open Research Program from Molecular Immunity Study Room Involving in Acute & Severe

Diseases in Guangxi Colleges and Universities (Nos. kfkt20160062 and kfkt20160063).

**Conflicts of interest and source of funding**

**5. Summary**

126 Liver Research and Clinical Management

**Abbreviations**

AFB1 aflatoxin B1 AFB2 aflatoxin B2 AFG1 aflatoxin G1 Xi-Dai Long1,2,3\*† , Yan Deng4† , Xiao-Ying Huang1† , Jin-Guang Yao1† , Qun-Ying Su1† , Xue-Min Wu1† , Juan Wang1† , Qun-Qing Xu<sup>3</sup> , Xiao-Ying Zhu<sup>3</sup> , Chao Wang5 , Bing-Chen Huang1 and Qiang Xia2

\*Address all correspondence to: sjtulongxd@263.net

1 Department of Pathology, the Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise, China

2 Department of Liver Surgery, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

3 Guangxi Clinic Research Center of Hepatobiliary Diseases, Baise, China

4 Department of Epidemiology, Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise, China

5 Department of Medicine, the Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise, China

† These authors contributed equally to this work.
