Because initiation is potentiated by the impairment of autophagy through the disruption of core autophagy genes and autophagy-defective tumor cells also display a dysregulated cell cycle25, we, in contrast to previous studies, used the autophagy inhibitor 3-MA and BECN1-KO cancer cells to directly determine the role of autophagy in G2/M arrest. This evidence concerns the gene BECN1 and cancer.