Up-Regulation of miR-21 Is Associated with Cervicitis and Human Papillomavirus Infection in Cervical Tissues

MicroRNA-21 (miR-21) is recognized as an oncomir and shows up-regulation in many types of human malignancy. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of miR-21 expression associated with HPV infection in normal and abnormal cervical tissues. Cervical tissue samples with different cytological or histopathological grades were investigated for HPV by PCR and for miR-21 and programmed cell death, protein 4 (PDCD4) expression using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Laser capture microdissection (LCM) of stromal and epithelial tissues and in situ hybridization (ISH) using locked nucleic acid (LNA) probes were performed on a subset of fixed specimens. Cell line experiments were conducted on fibroblasts stimulated in culture media from HeLa cells, which were then assessed for miR-21, PDCD4, IL-6 and α-SMA expression by qRT-PCR. Twenty normal cervical cell, 12 cervicitis, 14 cervical intraepithelial neoplastic I (CIN I), 22 CIN II-III and 43 cervical squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) specimens were investigated. miR-21 levels were significantly lower in normal than in abnormal tissues. The expression of miR-21 in HPV negative normal cytology was significantly lower than in HPV positive samples in abnormal tissue and SCC. The miR-21 expression was significantly higher in HPV negative cervicitis than HPV negative normal cells. LCM and ISH data showed that miR-21 is primarily expressed in the tumor-associated stromal cell microenvironment. Fibroblasts treated with HeLa cell culture media showed up-regulated expression of miR-21, which correlated with increased expression of α-SMA and IL-6 and with down-regulation of PDCD4. These results demonstrate that miR-21 is associated with HPV infection and involved in cervical lesions as well as cervicitis and its up-regulation in tumor-stroma might be involved in the inflammation process and cervical cancer progression.