Image-Pro Plus 6.0 software was used for quantitative analysis of the immunocytochemical staining images, and the results showed that the NEK2 protein expression levels in HepG2 (0.1217 ± 0.00408; 95%Cl: -0.03330, -0.01670; P = 0.000) and Hep3B (0.15 ± 0.1549; 95%Cl: -0.06998, -0.03669; P = 0.000) HCC cells were significantly higher than those in normal liver HL7702 cells (0.0967 ± 0.00816) (Fig. 3e). Here, NEK2 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.