癌细胞转移是导致癌症相关死亡以及治疗效果不佳的主要原因。一次转移级联是一系列复杂的生物过程。N6-甲基腺苷（m6A）是真核细胞中最丰富和最保守的表观转录后修饰之一，对RNA的产生和代谢产生了重大影响，包括RNA的剪接、处理、降解和翻译。越来越多的证据表明，m6A在调节癌细胞转移中发挥关键作用。然而，缺乏对m6A在癌细胞转移中近期发展的综述性研究。在本文中，我们系统地梳理了m6A轴调节转移的功能和机制，特别总结了各种癌症中m6A介导的器官特异性肝脏、肺和脑转移。此外，我们讨论了m6A修饰在癌症诊断和治疗中的潜在应用，以及m6A在癌细胞转移中的现有限制和未来展望。本综述提供了关于m6A调节基因表达的全面知识，有助于从新的表观转录学角度深入了解癌细胞转移的复杂性，并为基于m6A改变的抗转移的新策略的开发提供启示。©国际人类表型研究所（上海）2022。

Cancer metastasis is the major cause of cancer-related deaths and accounts for poor therapeutic outcomes. A metastatic cascade is a series of complicated biological processes. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most abundant and conserved epitranscriptomic modification in eukaryotic cells, which has great impacts on RNA production and metabolism, including RNA splicing, processing, degradation and translation. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that m6A plays a critical role in regulating cancer metastasis. However, there is a lack of studies that review the recent advances of m6A in cancer metastasis. Here, we systematically retrieved the functions and mechanisms of how the m6A axis regulates metastasis, and especially summarized the organ-specific liver, lung and brain metastasis mediated by m6A in various cancers. Moreover, we discussed the potential application of m6A modification in cancer diagnosis and therapy, as well as the present limitations and future perspectives of m6A in cancer metastasis. This review provides a comprehensive knowledge on the m6A-mediated regulation of gene expression, which is helpful to extensively understand the complexity of cancer metastasis from a new epitranscriptomic point of view and shed light on the developing novel strategies to anti-metastasis based on m6A alteration.© International Human Phenome Institutes (Shanghai) 2022.