Cervical cancer is one of the most common gynecological cancers worldwide. Over the past decade, much progress has been made in understanding the genetic changes associated with the development and progression of cervical cancer. However, the precise mechanisms of cervical carcinogenesis in Uigur women remain unclear. To screen differential gene expression in squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the cervix in Uigur women, suppressive subtractive hybridization (SSH) was performed on the cervical squamous cell carcinoma and corresponding normal cervical tissues of a Uigur patient. Thus we were be able to find the genes that are related with cervical tumors of Uigur women. A total of 300 samples were subject to DNA sequencing analysis and 46 genes were found to express differentially in tumors compared with normal tissues. Of the 46 genes, 24 genes were up-regulated whereas 22 genes were down-regulated in cervical tumors. The expression profiles of 5 of the 46 genes were further confirmed in 15 other Uigur patients by semi-quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. Our results revealed that ACADVL, CEBPB, IFITM1 and DNAJC9 are involved in cervical carcinogenesis.

Risk factors of the development of distant metastasis in primary node-negative breast cancer patients are heterogeneous. Identification of patients at high risk of early distant metastasis is of important clinical significance. In the current study, using the already published datasets, we develop a gene signature that can robustly predict early distant metastasis for patients with primary node-negative breast cancer. We identified a 39-gene signature, which were associated with distant metastasis and shorter distant metastasis free survival (DMFS) in node-negative breast cancers. Using the survival prediction analysis method in BRB-Array tools, this signature can stratify patients into early-and late-distant metastasis subgroups with different DMFS in VDX training dataset (AUC=0.734, P < 0.01). And we further validated the reliability of the prognostic value of this 39-gene signature in another two independent breast cancer cohorts (NKI dataset, AUC=0.642, P<0.0167; TRANSBIG dataset, AUC=0.711, P<0.0167). Furthermore, the early distant metastasis subgroups defined by the 39-gene signature exhibited a significant association with ER negative status and more aggressive molecular subtypes in all three datasets, and with poor differentiation status in two datasets. In summary, we developed a novel distant metastasis-related gene signature for predicting early occurrence of distant metastasis in node-negative breast cancers, what might be useful in making treatment decisions for these early metastasis patients.