Cell division cycle associated 5 (CDCA5) is a core regulator of DNA repair and chromosome separation, and plays a carcinogenic role in gastric cancer (Zhang et al., 2018), esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (Xu et al., 2019), and prostate cancer (Luo et al., 2021). Here, CDCA5 is linked to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.