SLC7A11 and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: Notably, the effect of NRF2 overexpression on radioresistance was abrogated under ferroptosis inhibitor ferrostatin-1 treatment (Fig. 6e–g; Additional file 1: Figure S1c, d), suggesting that NRF2 nuclear expression may promote radioresistance by inhibiting ferroptosis; additionally, we found that NRF2 overexpression substantially increased SLC7A11 expression in ESCC cell lines (Fig. 7a).