Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the most common malignant neoplasms and ranks as the sixth leading cause of cancer death worldwide.To date, ethyl 3,4-dihydroxybenzoate (EDHB), a prolyl hydroxylase inhibitor, can inhibit collagen secretion and decrease tumor fibrosis and metastasis in breast cancer cells[1].Usually, it can be found in the peanut seed testa.In the current study, we investigated the role of antitumor effect of EDHB in esophageal cancer cells, KYSE170.Using cell growth curve and flow cytometery anlaysis, we found that EDHB inhibited the proliferation, arrest the cell cycle and induce apoptosis in the ESCC cells.At the molecular level, EDHB decreased the expression of NF-κB, mTOR and up-regulated bax.Furthermore, 46 over-expressed and 9 down-regulated genes with fold changes greater than 2 times were identified in the EDHB treated KYSE170 cells using Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0 Gene Expression arrays.These results suggested that EDHB had a potential antitumor effect and may be an attractive candidate for ESCC chemoprevention.