The results indicated that high METTL3 expression was associated with some essential signaling pathways including ERBB pathway, MAPK pathway, mTOR pathway, renal cell carcinoma, pathway in cancer, TGF-β pathway and Wnt pathway (Fig. 5 and Table 3), giving a clue of the underlying mechanism in the pathogenesis of ccRCC. Here, TGFB1 is linked to nonpapillary renal cell carcinoma.