Hamdane N, et al. - In patients and mice with humanized livers, researchers studied hepatitis C virus (HCV)-induced epigenetic alterations that might influence hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk after direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment. In Europe and Japan, they performed genome-wide ChIPmentation-based ChIP-Seq and RNA-seq analyses of liver tissues from six patients without HCV infection (controls), 18 patients with chronic HCV infection, eight patients with chronic HCV infection cured by DAA treatment, 13 patients with chronic HCV infection cured by interferon therapy, four patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection, and seven patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Investigators identified epigenetic and gene expression variations related to HCC risk in an analysis of liver tissue from patients with and without sustained virologic response to DAA therapy. These variations may be targeted in patients treated for HCV infection to prevent liver cancer.