(a) Purified recombinant METTL3-WT-His, METTL3-Δ198, METTL3-Δ238, or METTL3-(Δ198+Δ238)-His protein were incubated with or without T47D cell lysates at 37°C for 1 hr followed by immunoblot with anti-His antibody. (b) Immunoblot of T47D cells infected with pHAGE-METTL3-Flag. (c, d, f, g) Immunoblot of 293T cells transfected with pHAGE-METTL3-WT or its indicated mutants. (e) Sequence alignment of conserved amino acids on (150–160) of METTL3. Immunoblot analysis (h), cell proliferation (i), and soft agar growth (j) of T47D cells infected with retrovirus encoding Vector (Vec), sgMETTL3 resistant METTL3-WT or its indicated mutants followed by another infection with sgMETTL3 or sgControl (sgCtrl). Immunoblot analysis (k) and N6-methyladenosine (m6A) dot blot (l) in 293T cells infected with shMETTL3 or shControl (shCtrl) followed by transfection with indicated plasmids. Methylene blue (MB) was used as a loading control. Error bars represent mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM), unpaired t-test. ns denotes not significant. FL is the full-length of METTL3. The short forms are labeled a, b, and c.