Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 3 pp 3909—3925

Figure 2. USP18 is up-regulated in bladder cancer and potentially associated with FTO protein level. (A) Schematic of the putative ubiquitination sites of K194, K211 and K216 (rhombus in green) in the N-terminal domain (NTD) of FTO as predicted by PTMcode tool. (B) Venn diagram showing FTO-targeting ubiquitin ligases and deubiquitinases that are significantly upregulated in BLCA. (C) Diagram showing the physical interaction between FTO and USP18 as predicated by HDOCK server. (D) USP18 transcript in patient-derived bladder tumor (T) versus normal tissues (N). *** p < 0.001, student’s t-test. (E) USP18 protein in BLCA tumor (T) versus normal tissues (N) as determined by western blot assay. ** p < 0.01, student’s t-test. (F) Pearson correlation analysis of FTO with USP18 expression. (G) USP18 protein expression profiling in the representative BLCA cell lines.