Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia based on array comparative genomic hybridization

Uterine cervical cancer is one of the most frequently observed malignant gynaecologic tumors. Carcinoma in situ or invasive cervical carcinoma develops from a low-grade intraepithelial lesion of the cervix over time. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is known to be a major contributing factor. With improvements in molecular genetic technologies, the authors attempted to identify the genomic changes associated with cervical precancerous lesions. In this study, changes in gene copy numbers were evaluated in five cases of severe uterine cervical dysplasia (HPV negative, two cases; HPV 16 and 18 positive only, three cases) by array comparative genomic hybridization (array CGH), and genes with copy number changes were compared between the two groups. Between the HPV positive and negative groups, only one gene was found to be upregulated more than 1.5 fold (3q23-q24), and no downregulated genes were identified. In conclusion, it is useful to evaluate genomic aberrations in cervical cancer using array CGH.