An unbiased LC-MS-based metabolomic analysis of the small molecule metabolites in HNF4α-positive HepG2 cells and HNF4α-negative SNU449 cells, two widely used cell lines in the research community of liver cancer, revealed that SNU449 cells are significantly different from HepG2 cells in the abundance of 174 metabolites (Supplementary Table 1, p < 0.05, |FC | > 1.5). Here, HNF4A is linked to liver cancer.