The protein expression of glycolysis increased in ESCC patients (Fig. 6B), and among them, shown by Pearson correlation analysis, levels of ENO1, PGAM1, TPI1, PKM, PGK1, ALDOA and LDHB were positively correlated with clinicopathological TNM stages (R2 = 0.59, P = 6.53e−7, R2 = 0.46, P = 3.99e−5, R2 = 0.33, P = 9.1e−4, R2 = 0.31, P = 0.001, R2 = 0.37, P = 3.7e−4, R2 = 0.34, P = 7.0e−4, and R2 = 0.39, P = 1.8e−4, respectively) (Fig. 9A). The gene discussed is PKM; the disease is esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.