We observed that the mRNA expression of 13 ATGs (ATG3, ATG4A, ATG4C, ATG5, ATG7, ATG9B, ATG10, ATG12, ATG16L1, ATG2A, ATG2B, ATG9A and ATG16L2) were closely associated with the OS of glioma patients (Fig. 1a and Additional file 2: Figure S2). This evidence concerns the gene ATG12 and central nervous system cancer.