We first examined the NDRG2 protein amounts in several HCC cell lines, with varying metastatic capability.[24, 25] The NDRG2 protein levels decreased progressively from normal liver cells (HL-7702 and QSG-7701), low metastatic SMMC-7721 and MHCC-97L cells, to highly metastatic MHCC-97H and HCC-LM3 cells (Fig. 1A). Here, NDRG2 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.