NPM3 as an Unfavorable Prognostic Biomarker Involved in Oncogenic Pathways of Lung Adenocarcinoma via MYC Translational Activation

Background: The nucleoplasmin/nucleophosmin (NPM) family was previously regarded as a critical regulator during disease development, and its mediation in carcinogenesis has achieved intensive attention recently. However, the clinical importance and functional mechanism of NPM3 in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) have not been reported yet. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the role and clinical significance of NPM3 in the development and progression of LUAD, including the underlying mechanisms. Methods: The expression of NPM3 in pan-cancer was analyzed via GEPIA. The effect of NPM3 on prognosis was analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier plotter and the PrognoScan database. In vitro, cell transfection, RT-qPCR, CCK-8 assay, and wound healing assay were employed to examine the role of NPM3 in A549 and H1299 cells. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed using the R software package to analyze the tumor hallmark pathway and KEGG pathway of NPM3. The transcription factors of NPM3 were predicted based on the ChIP-Atlas database. Dual-luciferase reporter assay was applied to verify the transcriptional regulatory factor of the NPM3 promoter region. Results: The NPM3 expression was found to be markedly higher in the LUAD tumor group than the normal group and to be positively correlated with poor prognosis, tumor stages, and radiation therapy. In vitro, the knockdown of NPM3 greatly inhibited the proliferation and migration of A549 and H1299 cells. Mechanistically, GSEA predicted that NPM3 activated the oncogenic pathways. Further, the NPM3 expression was found to be positively correlated with cell cycle, DNA replication, G2M checkpoint, HYPOXIA, MTORC1 signaling, glycolysis, and MYC targets. Besides, MYC targeted the promoter region of NPM3 and contributed to the enhanced expression of NPM3 in LUAD. Conclusion: The overexpression of NPM3 is an unfavorable prognostic biomarker participating in oncogenic pathways of LUAD via MYC translational activation and it contributes to tumor progression. Thus, NPM3 could be a novel target for LUAD therapy.