In addition, in HeLa and H1299 cells treated with the ATG7 CRISPR system, ATG7 expression decreased significantly and degradation of NICD and SNAI1 was inhibited (Additional file 1: Fig. S7), indicating that ATG7-dependent autophagy controls the levels of NICD and SNAI1 proteins in cancer cells. Here, SNAI1 is linked to cancer.