Our results suggest that PCBP1 not only downregulates autophagic flux in the starvation conditions by suppressing LC3B expression as previously reported (Zhang et al., 2016), but also coordinately represses multiple autophagic genes expression, including ULK1, ATG7, ATG12 and p62 to suppress tumor cell autophagy initiation and commitment, and eventually to enhance tumor cell apoptosis. The gene discussed is ULK1; the disease is neoplasm.