METTL14 knockout was shown to reduce the level of m6A of its downstream target SOX4, resulting in reduced recognition of the modified SOX4 mRNA by YTHDF2, thus increasing SOX4 gene expression and promoting the SOX4-mediated EMT process and activity of the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, leading to malignant progression of colorectal cancer (Chen et al., 2020a). The gene discussed is SOX4; the disease is colorectal cancer.