The SIRT3 mechanism should thus be related to ROS levels in the mitochondria (Chen et al., 2011; Park et al., 2011; Schumacker, 2011); however, low SIRT3 expression was reported to act as a poor independent prognostic factor of survival in patients with postsurgical hepatocellular carcinoma (Zhang et al., 2012). Here, SIRT3 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.