To further elucidate the role of MRPL21 in the development of HNSCC, we initially evaluated the basal expression levels of MRPL21 in various HNSCC cell lines, revealing high expression in the hypopharyngeal carcinoma cell line FaDu and relatively low expression in the laryngeal carcinoma cell line TU686 (Supplementary Fig. S2A). This evidence concerns the gene MRPL21 and hypopharyngeal carcinoma.