Prognostic and immunological analysis of METTL16 in pan-cancer

Background METTL16 is a methyltransferase that functions as a m6A writer. In recent years, it has been demonstrated that METTL16 can participate in tumor development, but there is no report on pan-cancer analysis of METTL16. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role and mechanism of METTL16 in pan-cancer. Methods Through the use of multiple bioinformatics approaches, we have elucidated the role of METTL16 at the pan-cancer level in the methylation modification, DNA repair, tumor cell stemness, genome stability, and the tumor immune microenvironment, as well as its consequent impact on cancer prognosis. Results We found that METTL16 is differentially expressed at the transcriptional and translational levels in pan-cancer, which correlates with tumor prognosis. The methylation of METTL16, which has multiple methylation modification activities, enhances the prognosis of cancer by promoting the infiltration of cytotoxic T lymphocytes and the expression of chemokines, receptors, MHCs, and immunostimulators. In pan-cancer, the aberrant expression of METTL16 also affects DNA repair, leading to altered tumor cell stemness and gene stability. METTL16 is an important molecule involved in the reprogramming of the tumor immune microenvironment. It impacts the expression of numerous immune checkpoint genes and prevents the infiltration of immune-suppressing cells, including M2 macrophages, regulatory T cells, and Dendritic cells. And it serves as an indicator of M1 macrophages infiltration. Furthermore, the expression level of METTL16 can also reflect the outcomes of cancer treatment after chemotherapy or immunotherapy. We also conducted a screening of drugs that target METTL16 and predicted their efficacy. Conclusions METTL16's differential expression in pan-cancer can result in alterations to DNA repair pathways, which can influence the stemness of tumor cells and contribute to genome instability. Methylation of METTL16 and its expression level can affect the remodelling of the tumor immune microenvironment. The prognosis of patients may be affected by these changes in tumors caused by METTL16, which implies that it could be a target for anti-tumor therapy.