# Supplementary Table S14: Inter-gene Correlation Matrix of FHRG-HCC Signature
# Dataset: TCGA-LIHC (n=371 tumor samples), z-score normalized expression (HTSeq FPKM-UQ)
# Method: Spearman rank correlation; * |rho|>=0.3, ** |rho|>=0.5
Gene	SLC2A1	NFS1	AIFM2	HILPDA	SLC7A11
SLC2A1	1.000	-0.126	0.000	0.098	0.367
NFS1	-0.126	1.000	0.216	-0.134	-0.046
AIFM2	0.000	0.216	1.000	-0.071	0.168
HILPDA	0.098	-0.134	-0.071	1.000	0.083
SLC7A11	0.367	-0.046	0.168	0.083	1.000

# Note: All five signature genes are included in the correlation matrix.
# HILPDA was recovered under its alias gene symbol C10orf99 from the same TCGA-LIHC RNA-seq dataset
# (UCSC Xena Hub, HTSeq-FPKM-UQ normalized). All five genes showed weak-to-moderate pairwise
# correlations (max |rho| = 0.37 between SLC2A1-SLC7A11), supporting the independence assumption
# for multivariate modeling. NFS1 exhibited the weakest correlations overall (|rho| < 0.22 with all
# other signature genes).