MRPL21 and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: Lee et al. (2017) found that suppressed MRPL13 expression increased hepatoma cell invasiveness. Koc et al. (2015) proposed that defects in mitochondrial function in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma might be caused by a decrease in MRPL11 expression. Shi et al. (2015) revealed that MRPL21 was significantly overexpressed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and could be used as a candidate prognostic biomarker.