AUTHOR=Jiang Senwei , Zhou Yun , Ye Minjuan , Li Xiaomao , Zhang Lan , Yang Yuebo 

TITLE=Construction of an immune-related ceRNA network in cervical cancer based on HPV E6 splicing

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Oncology

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2022.979884

DOI=10.3389/fonc.2022.979884

ISSN=2234-943X

ABSTRACT=Background: Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The unspliced human papillomavirus (HPV) E6 plays an important role in tumor progression and immune regulation. Improved immunotherapy implementation might benefit from a better knowledge of HPV E6 splicing-related immune gene expressions and immunocyte infiltration in cervical cancer. This study aimed to identify the potential therapeutic and prognostic roles of unspliced/spliced E6 ratio (E6 ratio) in cervical cancer.
Methods: Data from the TCGA, Oncomine, GEPIA, UALCAN, and Kaplan–Meier plotter databases were used to analyze the E6 condition and clinical information. LinkedOmics, GeneMANIA, and NetworkAnalyst were used to analyze co-expression networks. TIMER, ImmuCellAI, and GEPIA were used to investigate the relationship between the E6 ratio and immunological infiltrates. A core module was taken from the competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network and used to build a lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network.
Results: Our study found that HPV E6 ratio had significantly correlation with overall survival. In cervical cancer, a high E6 ratio was adversely linked with infiltrating levels of aDC, M1 macrophages, monocytes, NKT, and Tgd. High E6 ratio phenotypes were shown to be implicated in  immune response regulation, cell adhesion, and Wnt signaling pathways, according to functional enrichment analysis. Subsequently, we constructed an immune-related ceRNA network based on E6 splicing in cervical cancer, including three lncRNA (LINC00943, LIFR-AS1, DANT2, and RASSF8-AS1), four miRNA (miR-205-5p, miR-181d-5p, miR-222-3p, and miR-221-3p), and seven mRNA (FGFR1, PRLR, CXCL2, ISG20, ISG15, SDC1, and NR2F2). Among them, CXCL2, SDC1, and miR-221-3p were associated with survival and immune cell infiltration.
Conclusions: These data imply that a high E6 ratio in cervical cancer contributes to the immune-related ceRNA network, resulting in a low amount of infiltrating effector immune cells and tumor growth. As a result, the E6 ratio might be employed as a biomarker in cervical cancer to determine prognosis and treatment success.