BNIP3 and colorectal cancer: Autophagy and apoptosis share many regulators and interactions like beclin-1/Bcl-2,13 and caspase/beclin-1cleavage.14 Apoptosis induced by insufficient and excessive autophagy that resulted from the accumulation of autophagic vacuoles.55 Also, inhibition of autophagy was accompanied by apoptotic cell death in colorectal cancer cells.56 This study showed that CoCl2 treated group induced a significant increase in the percentage of apoptotic cells compared to that of necrotic cells as well as upregulation in the expression levels of BNIP3 and beclin-1.