Characteristics of HPV integration in cervical adenocarcinoma and squamous carcinoma

Purpose HPV integration usually occurs in HPV-related cancer, and is the main cause of cancer. But the carcinogenic mechanism of HPV integration is unclear. The study aims to provide a theoretical basis for understanding the pathogenesis of cervical adenocarcinoma (AC) and cervical squamous carcinoma (SCC). Methods We used HPV capture sequencing to obtain HPV integration sites in AC and SCC, and analyzed cytobands, distribution of genetic and genomic elements, identified integration hotspot genes, clinicopathological parameters, breakpoints of HPV16 and performed pathway analysis. Then we conducted immunohistochemical (IHC) assay to preliminarily verify the expression of most frequently integrated genes in AC, STARD3 and ERBB2. Results The results revealed that the most frequently observed integrated cytoband was 17q12 in AC and 21p11.2 in SCC, respectively. The breakpoints in both AC and SCC were more tended to occur within gene regions, compared to intergenetic regions. Compared to SCC samples, AC samples had a higher prevalence of genomic elements. In AC, HPV integration has no significantly difference with clinicopathological parameters, but in SCC integration correlated with differentiation ( P