Roles and clinical implications of N6-methyladenosine in digestive system tumors.

Digestive system tumors such as gastric, colorectal, esophageal, hepatocellular, pancreatic and gallbladder cancers are a huge global health burden, featuring high incidence, high malignancy, difficult early diagnosis and poor prognosis. Identifying novel diagnostic biomarkers and innovative therapeutic interventions has therefore become an urgent clinical need. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA modification is the most prevalent epigenetic mark on eukaryotic mRNAs and plays a key and multifaceted regulatory control role in the pathobiology of a variety of digestive system malignancies mainly through its "author", "eraser" and "reader" proteins. Dysregulation of these m6A regulators and the resulting abnormal m6A are closely related to tumor development and treatment outcomes, M6A critically regulates the pathobiology and therapeutic effects of digestive cancers, and its regulators are expected to be biomarkers and therapeutic targets, and this review helps to guide the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of digestive system tumors in the future.