BIRC5 and cancer: Bcl-2 and mTOR are well-known negative regulators of both apoptosis and autophagy while recent evidence indicate that the anti-apoptotic molecule, survivin, also plays a negative modulatory role in autophagy in cancer cells (Pattingre et al., 2005; Alers et al., 2012; Cheng et al., 2015; Vequaud et al., 2015).