Recent reports showed that autophagy might be involved in hepatic cell carcinoma (HCC) metastasis through facilitating anoikis resistance and lung colonization of HCC cells [18], while inhibition of PHLDA2 (pleckstrin homology-like domain family A member 2) could increase apoptosis in colorectal cancer cells partly through the activation of autophagy [19]. Here, PHLDA2 is linked to colorectal cancer.