In recent decades, multi-omics analyses and numerous studies have indicated that mitophagy not only facilitates multiple malignance behaviors [56–58] and tumor heterogeneity [59], but also induces resistance to anti-cancer drugs including doxorubicin, cisplatin, sorafenib and lenvatinib via various pathways and core molecules such as ARIHI, PINK1, NIX and BNIP3 [30, 60–62]. Here, BNIP3L is linked to cancer.