ZNF418 has been shown to be a transcriptional repressor, which may act as a negative regulator in the MAPK signaling pathway, and we also found the downregulation of ZNF418 in the ESCC tumor tissues in TCGA dataset, indicating the possible activation of MAPK pathway by decreased expression of ZNF418 in the ESCC pathogenesis (Additional file 5: Figure S4) [36]. Here, ZNF418 is linked to neoplasm.