METTL protein family: focusing on the occurrence, progression and treatment of cancer

Methyltransferase-like protein is a ubiquitous enzyme-like protein in the human body, with binding domains for nucleic acids, proteins and other small molecules, and plays an important role in a variety of biological behaviours in normal organisms and diseases, characterised by the presence of a methyltransferase-like structural domain and a structurally conserved SAM-binding domain formed by the seven-stranded β-fold structure in the center of the protein. With the deepening of research, the METTL protein family has been found to be abnormally expressed in a variety of tumor diseases, and the clarification of its relationship with tumor diseases can be used as a molecular therapeutic target and has an important role in the prognosis of tumors. In this paper, we review the structure, biological process, immunotherapy, drug-targeted therapy, and markers of the METTL protein family to provide new ideas for the diagnosis and treatment of tumors.