Pan-cancer analysis identifies KPNA7 as a prognostic and immune-related biomarker with functional relevance in gastric cancer

KPNA7 modulated cellular functions via RNA interaction and had a crucial part in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation. However, the potential function played by KPNA7 in pan-cancer remained unclear. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was performed to study the expression of KPNA7 in normal and cancer tissues. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and spearman correlation analysis were used to evaluate the associations of KPNA7 expression with prognosis, immune cell infiltration, tumor mutational burden (TMB) and microsatellite instability (MSI). We further investigated the relationship between KPNA7 expression levels and sensitivity to anticancer drugs. Finally, the effects of KPNA7 on gastric cancer cell proliferation, clonogenicity, migration, invasion, apoptosis, cell cycle, and in vivo tumor growth were evaluated using CCK-8, colony formation, scratch, transwell, flow cytometry, and subcutaneous xenograft assays. Bioinformatic analyses showed that KPNA7 was overexpressed in multiple tumors and was associated with unfavorable survival in selected cancer types. KPNA7 expression was significantly correlated with immune-related features, including immune cell infiltration, immunomodulatory factors, TMB, and MSI in several cancers. In addition, KPNA7 expression was associated with anticancer drug sensitivity patterns. Functional experiments further showed that KPNA7 knockdown inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion of gastric cancer cells while promoting apoptosis. These findings suggested that KPNA7 may serve as a potential biomarker with tumor-type-specific prognostic and immune-related relevance in cancer, providing new insights into its possible value in cancer biology and therapeutic stratification.