Comprehensive pan-cancer analysis reveals ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme 2T as a potential biomarker for prognosis and cancer immunity

Ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme 2T (UBE2T) constitutes a critical component of the ubiquitin-proteasome system and is involved in tumorigenesis. The UBE2T gene has been extensively characterized. In the present study, comprehensive analyses using various databases and R-based tools revealed elevated UBE2T expression across multiple tumor types, where its upregulation was shown to be associated with poor clinical outcomes and prognosis. Gene variation analysis identified 'amplification' as the predominant alteration in the UBE2T gene, followed by mutations; data from the GSCALite database further demonstrated a high frequency of UBE2T copy number variations and relatively infrequent single nucleotide variants across pan-cancer cohorts. In addition, UBE2T expression showed a positive correlation with trametinib and selumetinib sensitivity, and a negative correlation with CD-437 and mitomycin. Moreover, UBE2T expression was shown to be significantly associated with tumor immune markers, checkpoint genes and immune cell infiltration. Functionally, elevated UBE2T expression was linked to changes in key cellular processes, including proliferation, invasion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Gene Ontology, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis implicated pathways such as 'cell cycle', 'ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis', 'p53 signaling' and 'mismatch repair' as key mechanisms through which UBE2T may exert oncogenic effects. Overall, UBE2T has emerged as a potentially valuable prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in oncology.