RNF31 represses cell progression and immune evasion via YAP/PD-L1 suppression in triple negative breast Cancer

BACKGROUND: Recently genome-based studies revealed that the abnormality of Hippo signaling is pervasive in TNBC and played important role in cancer progression. RING finger protein 31 (RNF31) comes to RING family E3 ubiquitin ligase. Our previously published studies have revealed RNF31 is elevated in ER positive breast cancer via activating estrogen signaling and suppressing P53 pathway. METHODS: We used several TNBC cell lines and xenograft models and performed immuno-blots, QPCR, in vivo studies to investigate the function of RNF31 in TNBC progression. RESULT: Here, we demonstrate that RNF31 plays tumor suppressive function in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). RNF31 depletion increased TNBC cell proliferation and migration in vitro and in vitro. RNF31 depletion in TNBC coupled with global genomic expression profiling indicated Hippo signaling could be the potential target for RNF31 to exert its function. Further data showed that RNF31 depletion could increase the level of YAP protein, and Hippo signaling target genes expression in several TNBC cell lines, while clinical data illustrated that RNF31 expression correlated with longer relapse-free survival in TNBC patients and reversely correlated with YAP protein level. The molecular biology assays implicated that RNF31 could associate with YAP protein, facilitate YAP poly-ubiquitination and degradation at YAP K76 sites. Interestingly, RNF31 could also repress PDL1 expression and sensitive TNBC immunotherapy via inhibiting Hippo/YAP/PDL1 axis. CONCLUSIONS: Our study revealed the multi-faced function of RNF31 in different subtypes of breast malignancies, while activation RNF31 could be a plausible strategy for TNBC therapeutics. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13046-022-02576-y.