Abstract
According to GLOBOCAN 2022 cancer incidence and mortality statistics compiled by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the incidence rate of breast cancer (BC) ranks second among all 36 types of cancers, just after lung cancer. Despite great advances in breast cancer (BC) treatment-including agents such as Tamoxifen, Fulvestrant, Toremifene, and Raloxifene, all of which are approved for the systemic treatment of BC patients-these agents only prolong survival by a few months, and patients with advanced BC remain susceptible to drug resistance. Ubiquitination, a type of post-translational protein modification, influences cellular physiological activities by regulating protein localization, stability, and activity in pathways such as gene transcription and DNA damage signaling. The reversible process of ubiquitination, termed deubiquitination, refers to the release of ubiquitinated substrates through the action of deubiquitinases (DUBs) and other active molecules. In breast cancer, an increasing number of DUBs have been identified to exhibit aberrant expression, with specific DUBs capable of either promoting or suppressing mammary tumorigenesis depending on their substrates. In this review, we focused on several DUBs associated with breast cancer, including their structure, function, and relationship to BC. Among them, we focused on the USP family and OTU family, which are more extensively studied in BC.