Overexpression of UBA2 in cancer tissues was significantly associated with poor differentiation, large tumor size ( > 5.0 cm), higher T stages (T3 + 4), lymph node metastasis and advanced TNM stages (III + IV).
To investigate the importance of the SUMO pathway in the context of cancer cell proliferation and tumor growth, we applied lentivirus-based short hairpin RNAs (shRNA) to knockdown SUMO pathway genes in human cancer cells. shRNAs for SAE2 and UBC9 reduced SUMO conjugation activity and inhibited proliferation of human cancer cells.
SAE2 plays an important role in tumor growth, metastasis, and chemotherapy sensitivity of H446 and is a potential clinical biomarker and therapeutic target in SCLC with high c-Myc expression.
SAE2 is required for growth of Myc-dependent tumors in mice, and gene expression analyses of Myc-high human breast cancers suggest that low SAE1 and SAE2 abundance in the tumors correlates with longer metastasis-free survival of the patients.