BNIP3 and cancer: These genes have been revealed to be associated with cancer development in previous studies, and in particular BNIP3, a mitochondrial pro-apoptotic protein in the Bcl-2 superfamily, has been shown to mediate hypoxia-associated autophagy and thus enhance cancer metastasis (Thongchot et al., 2014; Chourasia and Macleod, 2015).