One previous study showed that NF-κB enhanced lung cancer cell motility by inducing FOXC2 expression.45 Whereas TNFα activates NF-κB signaling pathway under most conditions, we thereby examined whether TNFα treatment affected FOXC2 level and subsequent FA2H transcription in ESCC, finding that TNFα elicited co-upregulation of FOXC2 and FA2H in both LM and parental cells (Fig. 6c and Supplementary Fig. 9k–r). This evidence concerns the gene NFKB1 and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.