METTL16 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To analyze the correlation between METTL16 mRNA expression and prognosis, TCGA dataset was analyzed using the online in silico tool Kaplan–Meier Plotter, which showed that high METTL16 mRNA expression level was significantly correlated with poor overall survival in HCC (Fig. 1D; Additional file 1: Fig. S1).