Here, the anti-tumor effects of ALKBH5 were investigated in-depth, which showed that downregulation of ALKBH5 was associated with poor prognosis in colorectal cancer patients, and revealed that targeting the FOXO3/miR-21/SPRY2 signaling axis could be of therapeutic value for colorectal cancer patients (Wu et al., 2021). The gene discussed is ALKBH5; the disease is neoplasm.