It is important to highlight that in cancer cells, three distinct pathways of active autophagy can be induced by amino acid starvation: chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) dependent by mTOR inactivation, selective endosomal microautophagy independent of mTOR inactivation and the canonical, ATG protein-assisted macroautophagy, that can be activated by mTOR-dependent signaling. The gene discussed is MTOR; the disease is cancer.