Cancer

Cell culture and mouse studies suggest inhibiting USP13 could help treat lung and ovarian cancers. In samples from lung cancer patients, USP13 levels were higher in tumor samples than in adjacent normal lung tissue, and USP13 was highly expressed in tumor samples from ovarian cancer patients. In human lung and ovarian cancer cell lines cultured under hypoxic or oxidative stress conditions, knockout of USP13 decreased viability and increased apoptosis compared with normal expression. Also in the cell lines, knockout or knockdown of USP13 plus navitoclax decreased viability compared with navitoclax alone. In xenograft mouse models of lung and ovarian cancer, tumor-specific knockout of USP13 decreased tumor growth compared with normal expression. Next steps could include identifying and testing inhibitors of USP13 in models of lung and ovarian cancers...