NEIL1 and cancer: CRC is one of the most common cancers worldwide (Dekker et al., 2019; Biller and Schrag, 2021); in CRC, an increase in NEIL1 enhances cell proliferation and reduces apoptosis (Xue et al., 2020); NEIL1 can act as a substrate for the enzymatic deacetylation activity of Sirt3, which may result in the regulation of CRC risk (Kabzinski et al., 2022; Kabziński et al., 2019).