MINI REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
This article is part of the Research TopicEpitranscriptomic Regulation of Anti-Tumor ImmunityView all 3 articles
Unveiling the immunological functions of the RNA m5C reader YBX1 in cancer
Provisionally accepted
- 1Suining Central Hospital, Suining, China
- 2City of Hope, Duarte, United States
- 3Department of Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics, Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope, Duarte, United States
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Y-box binding protein 1 (YBX1) is a multifunctional RNA-binding protein that plays a central role in cancer progression across diverse tumor types. Mechanistically, YBX1 promotes tumorigenesis through multiple pathways, including interactions with long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs) to regulate gene transcription and translation, direct protein-protein interactions to stabilize oncogenic factors or facilitate their nuclear translocation, and recognition of RNA modifications such as m5C to enhance mRNA stability and translation. Beyond intrinsic tumor cell functions, YBX1 also modulates the tumor immune microenvironment. It can regulate immune cell activity and the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors in both m5C-dependent and -independent manners, thereby influencing responses to immunotherapy. Collectively, YBX1 acts as a critical driver of cancer progression and therapeutic resistance, integrating epitranscriptomic regulation, RNA-protein interactions, and immune modulation. These insights highlight YBX1 as a promising biomarker and potential target for combination therapies in cancer treatment.
Keywords: YBX1, Cancer Progression, Tumor immune regulation, Tumor Microenvironment, Therapeutic target
Received: 11 Sep 2025; Accepted: 04 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Yuan, Wang and Jiang. 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: Xiulin Jiang, xiujiang@coh.org
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