Figure 2. Future directions and challenges in autophagy inhibition.

A) Large scale screening of human tumor samples and cell lines, both oncogenic Ras-driven and otherwise, for elevated basal autophagy will identify a subset of tumors that may be particularly sensitive to autophagy inhibition as a therapeutic strategy. Method development will be required to translate this aim given the limited utility of current methods for examining human tumor samples for basal autophagy. B) Pre-clinical testing of autophagy inhibition as a therapeutic strategy in autophagy dependent tumors will lead to future clinical trials. Pre-clinical model development, pharmacodynamics of current autophagy inhibitory drugs, new target identification, and new inhibitor development are all important challenges facing the field of researchers investigating autophagy inhibition. C) Ongoing and future human clinical trials employing autophagy inhibition either as monotherapy or in combination with chemotherapy or targeted therapy will test the utility of autophagy inhibition as a cancer therapeutic strategy.