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The role of autophagy in cancer onset and progression appears still controversial. On one hand, autophagy allows cancer cell to survive in unfavorable environmental conditions, on the other hand, once internal energy resources are exhausted, it leads to cell death. In addition, autophagy interpheres with cell cycle progression, de facto exerting a cytostatic activity. Hence, it represents an important target for anticancer therapy. For example, temozolomide (TMZ), of use for glioblastoma (GBM) treatment, appears as capable of inducing autophagy partially inhibiting cancer cell proliferation. However, GBM, a very aggressive brain tumor with poor prognosis even after surgery and radio-chemotherapy, invariably recurs and leads to patient death. Since cancer stem cells have been hypothesized to play a role in refractory/relapsing cancers, in the present work we investigated if autophagy could represent a constitutive …