RNF2 facilitates the progression of cervical cancer through the degradation of LATS1

Cervical cancer represents a major gynecologic malignancy, second only to ovarian cancer in incidence. Although significant progress has been made in understanding its pathogenesis, the precise etiology of cervical cancer remains incompletely defined. In this study, we identified the E3 ubiquitin ligase RING2 (RNF2) as markedly upregulated in cervical cancer tissues. Functional experiments showed that knockdown of RNF2 significantly inhibits cervical cancer cell proliferation, migration, and tumor growth. Mechanistically, RNF2 binds to and promotes the degradation of LATS1, a core kinase of the Hippo signaling pathway, thereby enabling nuclear translocation of YAP and its subsequent transcriptional activation. Importantly, pharmacological inhibition of YAP effectively reversed the oncogenic phenotypes driven by RNF2, including excessive proliferation, migration, and tumor growth. Our findings delineate the RNF2-LATS1-YAP signaling axis as a crucial regulatory pathway in cervical cancer progression, providing novel insights for clinical therapeutic intervention and drug development.