NAA16 is an auxiliary subunit of the N-terminal acetyltransferase A (NatA) complex, which catalyzes N-terminal acetylation of eukaryotic proteins—one of the most prevalent protein modifications in cells 1. As part of the NatA complex, NAA16 contributes to protein maturation and binds to ribosomes in the cytosol, facilitating co-translational modification of nascent polypeptides 2. In cancer biology, NAA16 is classified as a cancer-essential gene with widespread altered expression across tumors, representing a systematic cancer phenomenon associated with patient survival outcomes 2. Notably, NAA16 dependency ranks within the top 80th percentile of essential genes across dependency screens, indicating critical cellular functions in malignant contexts. In cardiac development, NAA16 plays a critical role: cardiac-specific knockdown in Drosophila causes developmental lethality, structural disorganization, fibrosis, and impaired cardiac function 1. Human NAA16 successfully rescued cardiac defects in silenced models, whereas a congenital heart disease-associated variant (NAA16-R70C) failed to do so, providing direct functional evidence linking NAA16 variants to cardiac developmental pathology 1. In airways, elevated NAA16 expression correlates with reticular basement membrane thickening in asthma patients, associating with pro-fibrotic and anti-apoptotic transcriptome profiles involved in airway remodeling 3.