Table 3.

Autophagic genes involved in cell death (autophagic or apoptotic) VS our findings.

Gene expression changes	Cellular outcome	Effect(s)	Consequences on tumor fate	References	Our study findings
					43 °C	48 °C
Dormancy activation	P53 overexpression induced by Cdkn1b	Pentose phosphate pathway destruction	Cell death	110	3.24	NSC
		Increased ROS	Dormancy induction by IFN-b
FasL (CD95L or CD178), TRAIL and TNF-α activation	DISC formation	Caspase-3, 6 and 7 activation	Directly cell death	111	408.7	151.6
		Bid change into tBid	Mitochondria dependent apoptotic cell death		4.07	− 4.10
					4.10	− 2.90
Autophagy inhibition	ATG7 depletion	Accumulation of damaged mitochondria	The killing of dormant cells	112	2.17	NSC
		Increase of ROS	Does not affect cell metastasis and proliferation
		Increase of apoptosis
Autophagy activation	TMEM166 overexpression	High LC3II/LC3I	Autophagy and apoptosis regulator (autophagic and apoptotic cell death)	113	2.27	295.1
		Vacuolization
		Mitochondria membrane permeabilization
GABARAPL2/ULK upregulation	Necessary to maturation of two layers membranous vesicles	Shrinkage of tumor volume in complex with ULK2	Apoptotic cancer cell death	114	3.22	2.12
IRGM KO	p47 dependent GTPase	Negative regulation of IFN signaling	Inhibition of autophagic cell death	115	46.37	NSC
ATG16L2	Methylation of ATG16L2	Downregulation of autophagy	Autophagic cancer cell death	116,117	29.55	21.63
			Patients survival
Inherent ATG5 or autophagy KO	Autophagy deficiency	–	Increase apoptotic cell death	118	2.63	2.94
Increase of Bax and Bak1	Intrinsic pathway of apoptosis (mitochondria)	Indirectly effect on autophagy by inactivation of BaK1 and Bax	Increase cancer cell apoptosis	119,120	492.85	299.21
Bid and PUMA (apoptosis-associated genes)	BID acts as molecular link between apoptosis and autophagy	Contribute to identifying the molecular mechanism by which autophagy drives cells to death	Autophagic cell death	66,121	3.35	2.42
	PUMA is certain substrate for CMA
DAPK1	One of the most important genes in intra/extra cellular apoptotic pathways	ARHI dependent	Tumor suppressor	65	2280.29	1453.18
			Apoptotic cell death
PTEN	Negative regulator of PI3K/AKT/mTORC1	Autophagy activation, PI3K/Akt inhibition, PI3K/AKT/mTORC1 inhibition	Tumor suppressor	47	35.38	23.02
PTEN	Indirectly positive autophagy regulator	PTEN inhibitors (Tsc1 or Tsc2, p27) and Foxo3a	Escape from dormancy	122	35.38	23.02
PTEN	Tumor suppressor	Apoptosis modulators DRAM, DAPk and DRP-1, PTEN, E93, Akt/PKB, and mTOR), Bcl-2 family proteins, TRAIL and beclin 1	Autophagy act as upstream control of apoptosis death	113	35.38	23.02
GAA deficiency	Lysosomal hydrolysis of glycogen to glucose (glycogen storage disease II, or Pompe)	Accumulation of abnormal proteins and organelles due to inhibition of autophagy	Cell death	123	NSC	3.69
Autophagy abortion	DRAM1 overexpression	By p53	Apoptotic death	124	4.36	2.65

Significant values are in bold. NSC non significant change.