Downregulated genes were mainly enriched in metabolism-related pathways, consistent with the known function of AKR1B1. In addition, cancer-related pathways, such as the p53 signaling pathway, the HIF-1 signaling pathway, focal adhesion, and cell cycle DNA replication, were also enriched in these downregulated genes, which is in line with the observation that knockdown samples had lower levels of proliferation characteristics (Additional file 1: Fig. S7f). Here, AKR1B1 is linked to cancer.