In clinical practice,
cancer stage (or grade) and some
biomarkers, such as
carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CA199, are widely used to predict the prognosis of gastric
carcinoma patients. Due to the limited role of prognostic indicators for gastric
carcinoma, this condition remains one of the most fatal human
malignancies with a dismal prognosis.
Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (
NNMT, EC.2.1.1.1), a metabolizing
enzyme, is involved in the development and progression of various
carcinomas. However, the prognostic and biological functions of
NNMT in gastric
carcinoma are not yet clear. In the present study,
NNMT was found to be overexpressed at the
mRNA and
protein levels in gastric
carcinoma tissues compared with adjacent tissues. Importantly, the survival analysis verified that
NNMT expression is an independent prognostic factor for overall survival of
gastric cancer patients. Moreover,
NNMT expression was related to primary
tumor size,
lymph node metastasis, distant
metastasis, and TNM (
tumor, node, and
metastasis) stage. We also demonstrated that knockdown of
NNMT inhibits cellular proliferation, invasion and migration in vitro and in vivo. Overall, the results of this study suggest that
NNMT is a promising prognostic predictor for
gastric cancer patients and could be used as a new target for
gastric cancer therapy.