In esophageal cancer, RNA–protein interaction assays have shown that CARINH interacts with ILF3 (Interleukin Enhancer Binding Factor 3) and DHX9 (DExH-Box Helicase 9) to control the expression of the CARINH and IRF1 locus via a feedforward mechanism (Huang et al, 2019). Here, ILF3 is linked to esophageal cancer.