Considering the effect of CST1 on the migration and invasion of ESCC cells observed by constructing CST1 overexpression/knockdown cell lines (Fig. 1A–C) in our pilot study30, we conducted a comprehensive survey of the potential mechanism of CST1 in ESCC development by performing transcriptome sequencing of the ESCC cell line KYSE150 with CST1 knockdown using the DESep2 software (Fig. 1C). Here, CST1 is linked to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.