In our previous study, hematopoietic-substrate-1 associated protein X-1 (HAX-1), an anti-apoptotic protein, was found to be overexpressed in glioblastoma cells and tissues (Deng et al., 2017), which has also been reported in other malignant tumors (Trebinska et al., 2010; Luo et al., 2011; Li et al., 2013, 2015; Gomathinayagam et al., 2014; Wei et al., 2014; You et al., 2015, 2016). Here, HAX1 is linked to cancer.