TLR4 and esophageal cancer: To address whether inhibition of TLR4 and MAPK pathways was mechanistically linked to the repression of esophageal cancer cells, the viability and apoptosis of EC109 cells transfected with specific siRNAs targeting TLR4, MyD88, ERK, JNK, and p38 were determined using MTT assay and FCM analysis, respectively.