2024/07/09 by Youyuan Deng, Jingyong Li, Ye He +7 · 1 voice
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · #Ubiquitin and proteasome pathways #Ferroptosis and cancer prognosis #Cancer Immunotherapy and Biomarkers
paper · pdf · doi:10.18632/aging.206010
openalex publication_date 2024/07/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Background: Breast cancer is a prevalent disease that has a dismal prognosis for patients and a bad outlook for treatments. Ubiquitination is a reversible biological process that regulates protein production and degradation, as well as plays a vital role in protein transport, localization, and biological activity. Methods: We obtained the breast cancer patient sample data and used a machine learning technique to create a novel index called Deubiquitinating enzyme related index (DUBRI) by gathering genes associated to deubiquitinating enzymes. Based on DUBRI, we systematically analyze patientsâ prognosis, clinical characteristics, tumor immune microenvironment, chemotherapy response and immunotherapy response. Finally, the function of OTUB2 was explored in breast cancer cells. Results: DUBRI, which consists of five deubiquitinating enzyme genes (OTUB2, USP41, MINDY2, YOD1, and PSMD7), is a reliable predictor of survival in breast cancer patients. We found that the high DUBRI group presented higher levels of immune cell infiltration. We performed molecular docking prediction of core target proteins in deubiquitinating enzymes. In vitro experiments verified that knockdown of OTUB2 could inhibit the proliferation and migration of breast cancer. Conclusions: The DUBRI discovered in this research may effectively evaluate the outlook of breast cancer patients and identify groups of patients who would gain advantages from immunotherapy, offering vital knowledge for the future targeted treatment of breast cancer patients.