Hu et al. have shown that a high expression of SIRT1 (Sirtuin 1), a key player in mitochondrial biogenesis and autophagy-related protein, is associated with high CXCR4 expression, a negative prognostic marker in AML, and with other autophagy-related proteins such as ATG5 and LC3 in primary human AML samples, indicating a potential role of the SDF-1α-CXCR4 signaling pathway in autophagy induction in AML cells, which further promotes their survival under stress [107]. The gene discussed is CXCR4; the disease is acute myeloid leukemia.