Hypoxia promotes cancer progression by inducing lactylation of Serine hydroxymethyl transferase 2 (SHMT2) or Axin1 protein to promote glycolysis of EC cells (Li et al., 2024; Qiao et al., 2024), or by introducing a novel hypoxia induced long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), lnc191 as a key driver activating GRP78/ERK/MAPK signaling in the ESCC progression (Wei et al., 2024). The gene discussed is HSPA5; the disease is esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.