Our studies found that autophagy inhibition by Atg5/7 knockdown or treatment with CQ significantly prevented Akt reduction induced by curcumin (Fig 5) and mitigated the inhibitory action of curcumin on cell proliferation and migration (Fig 6), indicating that the autophagy inhibition prevents curcumin-induced Akt degradation and reverses the impacts of curcumin on cancer cell proliferation and migration. This evidence concerns the gene ATG5 and cancer.