Zhu T, Yang Q, Shao J, et al. - The typical treatment for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) currently involves surgical resection. Despite this, there is a high mortality rate due to the highly invasive and metastatic characteristic of the disease that led researchers to seek potential prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets. With this aim, the expression of proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 (Pyk2), a non-receptor tyrosine protein kinase, in ESCC and its influence on prognosis were examined in this study. Analyzing the tissue microarray (TMA) of a total of 112 cases of ESCC and paired adjacent normal tissues (NT), they identified higher levels of Pyk2 in ESCC by immunohistochemistry. A positive correlation of the expression level of Pyk2 was evident with N stage (node negative vs node positive) and clinical stage (I + II versus III + IV). High Pyk2 expression was identified to be an independent prognostic factor for overall survival with ESCC. In cell function studies, Pyk2 was identified promoting tumor proliferation and migration and reducing apoptosis. Knockdown of Pyk2 led to an increase in the sensitivity to cisplatin in ESCC cells.