Fig. 2: RNF40 is associated with a poor survival outcome in TNBC patients.

A Box-whiskers plot of RNF40 protein expression in healthy mammary tissue and different BC subtype biopsies (source: Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium-CPTAC, retrieved from: http://ualcan.path.uab.edu/). B Immunohistochemical detection of RNF40 and H2Bub1 in a tissue microarray of primary TNBC biopsies and TNBC brain metastases. Pie charts summarizing the immunohistochemical intensity incidence of each marker in primary and brain metastasis biopsies (upper panel). Representative pictures of the immunohistochemical detection of both markers (lower panel). C Bar chart presenting the distribution of RNF40^high and RNF40^low TNBC patients in the Ki67 low (Ki67 < 20%) and Ki67 high (Ki67 ≥ 20) group of lesions. Statistical test: Fisher’s exact test. D Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) profile of the “RAMALHO_STEMNESS_UP” gene signature, significantly enriched in RNF40^high-expressing BLBC patients (source: https://www.gsea-msigdb.org/gsea/msigdb/). NES: Normalized Enrichment Score, FDR: False Discovery Rate. E Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) plot of single-cell RNA-sequencing transcriptomic data from all BC subtypes (top-left panel) and the respective UMAP-heatmap plot of the single-cell gene expression levels of RNF40 (top-right panel) and the CSC-specific marker CD44 (bottom-right panel) from TNBC biopsies. Pearson correlation analysis of RNF40 and CD44 in TNBC biopsies at a single-cell level is provided as a dot-plot (bottom-left panel). Data retrieved from https://singlecell.broadinstitute.org/single_cell, study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-021-00911-1). F Overall survival (OS) and progression-free interval (PFI) analysis of RNF40^high and RNF40^low BLBC patients [patient survival data source: The Cancer Genome Atlas for Breast AdenoCArcinoma (TCGA-BRCA), retrieved from https://xenabrowser.net/].