Our previous study revealed that targeting survivin by its pharmacological inhibitor, YM155, induces autophagy and autophagic cell death without caspase-3 activation in breast cancer cells, indicating that: (1) caspase-3 activation is not a definite prerequisite event for YM155 induced breast cancer cell death and (2) survivin might play a role in the regulation of cellular autophagy (Cheng et al., 2015). The gene discussed is BIRC5; the disease is breast cancer.