AKT1 and neoplasm: Since activation of the AKT signaling pathway has been reported to promote epithelial mesenchymal transformation (EMT) and the transition of tumor cells from the G1 phase to the S phase, we compared the expression patterns of IKBIP with those of cell proliferation-related proteins, EMT-related proteins and migration-related proteins in ESCA samples using the correlation analysis module in the GEPIA2 database (Fig. 6A).