REVIEW article

Front. Cardiovasc. Med.

Sec. Cardiovascular Biologics and Regenerative Medicine

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1582049

The role of deubiquitinases in cardiovascular diseases: mechanisms and therapeutic implications

Provisionally accepted
Xiangyu  FeiXiangyu Fei1Chao  SongChao Song2Jian  CuiJian Cui2Yuqing  LiYuqing Li1Xiaoyong  LeiXiaoyong Lei1Huifang  TangHuifang Tang2*
  • 1University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan Province, China
  • 2The First Affiliated Hospital, University of South China, Hengyang, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have become the leading cause of death globally, surpassing infectious diseases and other chronic illnesses. The incidence and mortality rates of CVDs are rising worldwide, posing a key challenge in public health. The ubiquitination system is a vast and complex. It is an important post-translational modification that plays a crucial role in various cellular processes. Deubiquitination is catalyzed by deubiquitinases (DUBs), which remove ubiquitin (Ub) from ubiquitinated proteins, thereby reversing the ubiquitination process. DUBs play an important role in many biological processes, such as DNA repair, cell metabolism, differentiation, epigenetic regulation, and protein stability control. They also participate in the regulation of many signaling pathways associated with the development and progression of CVDs. In this review, we primarily focus on the role of DUBs in various key pathological mechanisms of atherosclerosis (AS), such as foam cell formation, vascular remodeling (VR), endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition (End-MT), and clonal hematopoiesis (CH). In the heart, we summarize the involvement of DUBs in diseases and pathological processes, including heart failure (HF), myocardial infarction (MI), myocardial hypertrophy (MH) and ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Additionally, we also explore the diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) and the use of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity in clinical settings. A comprehensive understanding of deubiquitination may provide new insights for the treatment and drug design of CVDs.

Keywords: deubiquitinases, deubiquitination, ubiquitin-proteasome system, Signaling Pathways, proteostasis, cardiovascular disease

Received: 23 Feb 2025; Accepted: 22 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Fei, Song, Cui, Li, Lei and Tang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Huifang Tang, The First Affiliated Hospital, University of South China, Hengyang, China

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