TAOS1 (tumor amplified and overexpressed sequence 1) was recently cloned and found to be possibly important in driving the amplification of 11q13 in oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).,Quantitative RT-PCR was performed to determine the possible relationship between TAOS1 gene expression levels and clinicopathological features in esophageal SCC.,TAOS1 overexpression was observed in 7 out of 38 (18%) esophageal SCCs and CCND1 overexpression was observed in 4 out of 38 (11%), suggesting that TAOS1 was more frequently overexpressed than CCND1 in esophageal SCC. The examination of the correlation of TAOS1 overexpression with the clinicopathological features revealed a significant difference in lymph node metastasis (p = 0.014) and a trend towards advanced TNM stages (p = 0.074).,The present results suggest that TAOS1 might serve as a new marker for predicting the malignancy of esophageal SCC.