Surprisingly, reduced lactate level along with the absence of monocarboxylate transporter 1/4 (MCT1/4) and CD147 overexpression in T pointed towards the presence of a novel mechanism in hepatoma, which promoted the mitochondrial pyruvate entry and prevented the lactic acid-induced cytotoxicity (Figure 2A, Figure 3A, Figure 4A, respectively; Figure S7; Table 1 and Table 2; Tables S4, S6, S8, respectively). This evidence concerns the gene SLC16A1 and hepatocellular carcinoma.