The clinical significance of human papillomavirus oncogene E6/E7 mRNA testing for cervical lesions

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of human papillomavirus (HPV) oncogene E6/E7 mRNA testing for cervical lesions.Methods The clinical materials consisted of 280 women,with positive HPV DNA testing,from the Third affiliated hospital of Zhengzhou University,during the period from January 2011 up to December 2011,were selected under the examinations of thinprep cytologic test (TCT) and hybrid capture Ⅱ (HC2) test.All TCT samples were studied for the level of HPV E6/E7 mRNA by QUANTIVIRUS（R） HPV E6/E7 mRNA 3.0 Assay (bDNA).Subjects with cervical biopsy were followwed up the histopathological results.Results The cytologic pathological results of the 280 cases were as follows:27 (9.64％) cases were negative for intraepithelial lesion(NILM),94 (33.57％)cases were atypical squamous cells (ASC),70(25.00％)cases were low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL),67 (23.93％)cases were high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) and 22 (7.86％) cases were squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).The levels of HPV E6/E7 mRNA in abnormal cytologic result groups (include ASC,LSIL,HSIL and SCC) were significantly higher than that in NILM group respectively (* P =0.000,**P =0.000,***P =0.016,****P =0.022).HPV E6/E7 mRNA expression increased with severity of cervical cytologic lesions.One hundred eight four,of 280 cases,were traced the histologic results.According to the pathological diagnosis,51 (27.72％) cases were chronic cervicitis,46 (25.00％) cases were cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) Ⅰ,25 (13.59％) cases were CIN Ⅱ,30 (16.30％) cases were CIN Ⅲ and 32 (17.39％) cases were squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).The levels of HPV E6/E7 mRNA in abnormal pathological groups (include CIN Ⅰ,CIN Ⅱ,CIN Ⅲ and SCC) were significantly higer than that in chronic cervicitis group (*P=0.016,**P=0.025,***P =0.007,****P =0.039).HPV E6/E7 mRNA transcripts increased with severity of histologic lesions.The spearman rank assay was used to analyse the correlation between HPV E6/E7 mRNA expression with severity of cervical cytologic lesions (r=0.188,P=0.001) and histologic lesions(r =0.582,P=0.000).Conclusion TCT specimen are ideal to be used to detect HPV E6/E7 mRNA by bDNA.The up-regulation of HPV E6/E7 mRNA probably promotes the development and progression of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.Testing for HPV E6/E7 transcripts may serve as a more specific discriminator between transient cervical dysplasias and potentially progressive lesions. Key words: Human papillomavirus; E6/E7 mRNA; Cervical lesion; bDNA assay