Somatic-cell cancers such as ovarian, head/neck squamous cell carcinoma, gastric, and colorectal cancers have been implicated with TET3 disruption but the mechanistic influence of TET3 remains unclear (Misawa et al., 2018; Cao et al., 2019; Mo et al., 2020). Here, TET3 is linked to head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.