In ESCC, preclinical studies report tumor-suppressive functions via targeting oncogenic pathways (e.g., cell division cycle 42 (Cdc42)-mediated invasion (Sharma, Saini & Sharma, 2017), epidermal growth factor receptor/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/ak strain transforming (EGFR/PI3K-AKT) signaling (Wei et al., 2024)). Here, AKT1 is linked to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.