Transcriptome analysis reveals the effect of oral contraceptive use on cervical cancer

Differentially-expressed genes (DEGs) correlated to oral contraceptives (OCs) were identified by comparing the transcriptomes of cervical cancer patients who have taken OCs and those who have not. Their biological functions and relevance to clinical manifestations were investigated further in order to gain an understanding of the pathogenesis of cervical cancer and provide potential therapeutic targets. Level 3 RNA-sequencing (seq) data for cervical squamous-cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma and the clinical information were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas. The present study analyzed the RNA-seq data and information on OC use of 35 patients [OC users (n=18) and those who have never used OCs (n=17)]. Student’s t-test was used in order to identify DEGs and the false discovery rate (FDR) was estimated by a Beta-Uniform Mixture model, which was adopted in multiple testing corrections. A functional enrichment analysis was performed with the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery tool and BioCarta. A total of 80 DEGs were identified in OC users while FDR=0.3 was set as the cut-off value. The metabolic process and human telomerase RNA gene transcription were significantly upregulated in DEGs. Furthermore, secreted LY6/PLAUR domain containing 1 was identified to be correlated to the pathological response, while the synapse defective 1 Rho GTPase homolog 2 was found to be significantly associated with the histological grade and overall survival time. In conclusion, present study shed light on the effect of OC use on the oncogenesis of the cervix and may indicate novel approaches for a targeted therapy of cervical cancer.