BECN1 and breast carcinoma: To further test our hypothesis that autophagy plays a pro-survival role in response to a compromised supply of cellular nutrients and growth factors during breast cancer development and progression, we knocked down eEF-2 kinase, beclin-1 or ATG5 (two of the key autophagy-related genes) in MCF-7 cells (Fig. 5A), and then compared the growth and survival of these autophagy-deficient cells with that of the cells transfected with a non-targeting RNA in serum-free medium or HBSS.