Correlation of microRNA-124 expression and high risk HPV18 viral load in cervical cancer

Objective To explore the correlation of microRNA-124 expression and high risk HPV viral load with cervical cancer so as to provide evidence for clinical monitoring and diagnosis. Methods A total of 205 patients who suffered from cervical lesions and received cervical biopsies in our hospital from September 2013 to September 2016 were included in the study. Fifty-six patients were healthy or with inf l ammation, 32 patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia gradeⅠ(CINⅠ), 37 patients with gradeⅡ(CINⅡ)and 31 patients with gradeⅢ(CINⅢ). Forty-nine patients had cervical cancer (38 cases of squamous and 11 cases of adenocarcinoma). Reverse transcription-f l uorescence quantitative PCR and hybrid captureⅡ(HCⅡ) were used to detect the relative expression of microRNA-124 and HPV18 virus load. According to the virus load, we categorized the patients into negative group (≤ 1 pg/ml), low-load group (1-50 pg/ml), medium-load group (51-500 pg/ml) and high-load group (501-1 000 pg/ml).The relationship between high risk of HPV viral load and degree of cervical tissue lesion was analyzed by Spearman analysis. Results The HPV18 virus load and level of microRNA-124 in cervical cancer patients were significantly higher than those in other groups (all P< 0.05), while they were the lowest in the healthy and inf l ammation group (P=0.001). The HPV virus load and expression level of microRNA-124 increased with the aggravation of cervical cancer. The high-risk HPV virus load was positively correlated with occurrence of cervical cancer (R=0.974, P=0.000). The expression of microRNA-124 linearly increased with grading of cervical lesions (R=0.889, P=0.012). Conclusion The expression level of microRNA-124 in tissues and high risk HPV virus load are closely related to cervical cancer.