AMACR and prostate cancer: To our knowledge, our study is the first to report an inverse correlation between Alpha-Methylacyl-CoA Racemase (AMACR) expression and methylation of AMACR-associated DMRs in prostate cancer and adjacent non-tumor tissues (AA: correlation estimate for tumor: − 0.62, P-value: < 0.001; EA: correlation estimate for tumor: − 0.68, P-value: < 0.001; Additional File 2, Figs. S4C–D; Additional File 4).