Cristofani et al. (2022) have shown that HSPB8-induced autophagy is a key event in the elimination of melanoma cell growth. ProteinkinaseR encoded by EIF2AK2 gene is involved in autophagy and cell pyroptosis induced by inflammatory bodies in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (Shen et al., 2012; Jiang et al., 2020). In this study, we found the mRNA levels of EIF2AK2, HSP90AA1 and INHBA were significantly overexpressed in ESCC cells, and that knockdown of INHBA expression suppressed ESCC cell migration and invasion. Here, EIF2AK2 is linked to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.