SQSTM1 and pancreatic neoplasm: It has been reported that autophagy facilitates the acquisition of additional nutrition for pancreatic cancer cells to increase survival.19, 20, 21, 22 We detected the basal autophagy levels and observed a high LC3-II/LC3-I ratio as well as elevated Beclin-1 and lower SQSTM1/P62 levels, indicating that basal autophagy levels in pancreatic cancer cells are higher than those in normal cells (Figure 3a).23, 24, 25 The autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA) remarkably declined PANC-1 and BxPC-3 cell proliferation.