The significant hypomethylation we observed in genes related to primary metabolic processes (Fig. 5A) may reflect a broader disruption of mitochondrial RNA metabolism in GC, consistent with recent reports demonstrating that METTL14-mediated m6A loss reduces mitochondrial respiratory chain complex activity and supercomplex assembly, and that the METTL3-YTHDF1 axis regulates oxidative phosphorylation dysfunction in metabolic disorders [34, 35]. This evidence concerns the gene METTL14 and metabolic disease.