a) Schematic illustration of the workflow employed for HCC CTC purification (capture/release) by Click Chips in conjunction with an HCC-specific antibody cocktail (i.e., anti-EpCAM, anti-ASGPR1, and anti-GPC3). The HCC CTC purification approach combines two consecutive covalent chemistry-mediated reactions, i.e., 1) the click reaction-mediated HCC CTC capture from peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples onto Click Chips, and 2) disulfide cleavage-driven HCC CTC release from Click Chips to phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) by 1,4-dithiothreitol (DTT). b) Quantification of the 64 HCC-specific genes in the purified HCC CTCs were performed by Nanostring nCounter platform. After bioinformatic analysis and comparison, the gene signatures in HCC CTCs showed high concordance with HCC tissue gene signatures from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database.