BackgroundAlthough the correlation of HPV genotype with cervical precursor lesions and invasive cancer has been confirmed, the role of HPV genotype in cervical cancer prognosis is less conclusive. This study aims to systematically investigate the independent prognostic role of HPV genotype in cervical cancer.MethodsA total of 306 eligible patients provided cervical cell specimens for HPV genotyping before therapy and had a median follow-up time of 54 months after diagnosis. Survival times were measured from the date of diagnosis to the date of cervical cancer-related death (overall survival, OS) and from the date of diagnosis to the date of recurrence or metastasis (disease free survival, DFS). Log-rank tests and Cox proportional hazard models were performed to evaluate the association between HPV genotype and survival times.ResultsA total of 12 types of high-risk HPV were detected and the leading ten types belong to two species: alpha-9 and alpha-7. HPV16 and 18 were the two most common types, with the prevalence of 60.8% and 8.8%, respectively. In the univariate analysis, HPV16-positive cases were associated with better OS (P = 0.037) and HPV16-related species alpha-9 predicted better OS and DFS (both P < 0.01). After adjusting for age, FIGO stage, and therapy, HPV16 showed a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.36 (95% CI: 0.18, 0.74; P = 0.005) for OS, and alpha-9 resulted in a HR of 0.17 (95% CI: 0.08, 0.37; P < 0.001) for OS and 0.32 (95% CI: 0.17, 0.59; P < 0.001) for DFS.ConclusionsHPV genotype poses differential prognoses for cervical cancer patients. The presence of HPV16 and its related species alpha-9 indicates an improved survival.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12879-017-2465-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Paired box 8 (PAX8) is a crucial nephric-lineage transcription factor, and its aberrant expression has been detected in various types of cancer including Müllerian carcinomas. PAX8 antisense RNA 1 (PAX8-AS1), a potential regulator of PAX8, contains specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that may represent expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) for PAX8. In this study, we hypothesized that these eQTLs SNPs in PAX8-AS1 may influence the risk of cervical cancer. A case-control study of 1486 cervical cancer patients and 1536 cancer-free controls was conducted to identify the associations between two eQTLs SNPs (rs4848320 and rs1110839) and cervical cancer. Logistic regression analyses revealed that variant allele T of rs4848320 (recessive model: adjusted OR = 0.61, 95 % CI = 0.38-0.97, P = 0.027) and G of rs1110839 (additive model: adjusted OR = 0.88, 95 % CI = 0.79-0.99, P = 0.032) were associated with decreased risk of cervical cancer. Moreover, the haplotype containing variant alleles of the two SNPs significantly decreased the risk of cervical cancer compared to the most frequent haplotype (adjusted OR = 0.82, 95 % CI = 0.70-0.95, P = 0.009). These findings indicate that PAX8 eQTLs SNPs may serve as novel susceptibility markers for cervical cancer.

Given that only a small proportion of women infected by high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) develop cervical cancer, it's important to identify biomarkers for distinguishing women with hrHPV positivity who might develop cervical cancer from the transient infections. In this study, we hypothesized that human leukocyte antigens (HLA) susceptibility alleles might contribute to cervical cancer risk among females infected by hrHPV, and interact with hrHPV types. A case-control study with 593 cervical cancer cases and 407 controls (all hrHPV positive) was conducted to evaluate the effect of eight HLA-related single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and their interactions with hrHPV types on the risk of cervical cancer. Three HLA-DP SNPs (rs4282438, rs3117027, and rs3077) were found to be significantly associated with risk of cervical cancer (rs4282438: odds ratio (OR) = 0.72, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 0.56-0.93; rs3117027: OR = 1.41, 95 % CI = 1.10-1.83; and rs3077: OR = 1.37, 95 % CI = 1.04-1.80) among women infected with hrHPV. An additive interaction between HPV16 and rs4282438 for cervical cancer risk was also found (P for interaction = 0.002). Compared with subjects carrying variant genotypes (GG/TG) and non-HPV16 infections, those carrying wild-type genotype (TT) of rs4282438 and HPV16 positive had a 5.22-fold increased risk of cervical cancer (95 % CI = 3.39-8.04). Our study supported that certain HLA-DP alleles in concert with HPV16 could have a predisposition for cervical cancer development, which may be translated for triage of hrHPV-positive women.

RAD51B plays a central role in homologous recombinational repair (HRR) of DNA double‐strand breaks (DSBs), which is important to prevent genomic instability, a hallmark of cancer. Recent studies suggested that common genetic variants of RAD51B may contribute to cancer susceptibility. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether potentially functional variants within miRNA‐binding sites of RAD51B are associated with risk of cervical cancer. A total of 1486 cervical cancer patients and 1536 cancer‐free controls were enrolled, and two genetic variants, rs963917 (A > G) and rs963918 (T > C), were genotyped in all participants. Using multivariate logistic regression analyses, we found that G allele of rs963917 conferred lower risk of cervical cancer compared to A allele (adjusted OR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.80–0.99, P = 0.039). Similarly, rs963918 allele C was associated with a decreased risk for cervical cancer compared with allele T (adjusted OR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.74–0.94, P = 0.004). Haplotype analyses showed that haplotype GC was also correlated with lower risk (OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.73–0.95, P = 0.005) compared with the most common haplotype AT. In summary, our study suggested that miRNA‐binding site genetic variants of RAD51B may modify the susceptibility to cervical cancer, which is important to identify individuals with differential risk for this malignancy and to improve the effectiveness of preventive intervention.

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