PTEN and central nervous system cancer: Following the immunohistochemical analysis of well-established autophagy markers, we selected nine autophagy-related genes, including the master regulators and core autophagy genes such as PTEN, PI3K, AKT, mTOR, ULK1, ULK2, UVRAG, Beclin 1, and VPS34. The difference in relative mRNA expression of autophagy-related genes was compared in different grades of 39 glioma cases.