CHI3L1 and malignant colon neoplasm: There is a high incidence of mutations or deletions of this gene in most tumor types.32 Also, studies indicated that downregulation of p53 could accelerate the proliferation in cancer cells with various mechanisms.33, 34, 35 In our study, overexpression of CHI3L1 in colon cancer cells stimulated cell proliferation, which could be partly explained by down‐regulation of p53.