BCL2L1 and cancer: Cancer cells escape apoptosis by the upregulating of anti-apoptotic Bcl2 proteins (Bcl2, Bcl-XL and Mcl1), and this upregulation significantly adds to tumor progression, poor prognosis, and chemo resistance (Vogler, 2014; Correia et al., 2015; Gong et al., 2016).