TAOK1 and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: Apart from regulating various signaling pathways, TAO kinases are reported to interact with other cytosolic proteins and regulate the DNA damage responses, cytoskeleton stability, apoptosis, and other physiological and pathophysiological responses.[8] In our study, we first found TAOK3, rather than TAOK1 and TAOK2 was significantly overexpressed in ESCC cell lines and tissues.