To demonstrate the role of NOD2 in clinical HCC progression, NOD2 expression was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in one cohort including 165 pairs of HCC tissues and corresponding distal non-cancerous liver tissues; followed by western blot and real-time PCR assay of the NOD2 expression in another cohort of 64 patients with matched pairs of HCC tissues and distal non-cancerous liver tissues. Here, NOD2 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.