The expression of variant 1 in MAP1LC3A is commonly silenced at the transcriptional level in numerous cancer cell lines due to epigenetic changes, indicating that it may be implicated in the carcinogenesis of gastric cancer, osteosarcoma, and glioma (Bai et al., 2012; Giatromanolaki et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2016). Here, MAP1LC3A is linked to gastric cancer.