ULK1 and gastric cancer: Zhi et al. first found that inhibition of adrenergic signaling could mediate the inactivation of the AMPK/ULK1 pathway, reduce autophagic flux, and ultimately inhibit GC progression and decrease tumor incidence, suggesting that the activation of the AMPK/ULK1 pathway is not only regulated by nutritional status, energy stress, growth factors, and oxygen concentration, but also has a strong link with chronic stress (Zhi et al., 2019).