Abstract LB-366: miRNA as markers of CIN risk and persistence for optimization of HPV-based cervical cancer screening

Cervical cancer (CC) is caused by oncogenic human papillomaviruses (HR-HPVs) infection and exhibits well-defined clinical stages associated with different steps of tumorigenesis. Screening for CC based on HPV is more effective than cytology, but it may increase costs and over treatment of spontaneously regressive high-grade lesions (hgCIN). Thus triage of HPV positive women is needed. Several microRNAs (miRNAs) are dysregulated in CC and hgCIN. However, the studies so far are based on miRNA candidate genes or array approach, mainly in tumor/healthy tissues. The aim of this study is to investigate, for the first time, miRNA profiles by next-generation sequencing in exfoliated cervical cells of HPV-positive women in relation to the presence of hgCIN lesions or as predictors of persistence/progression of CIN lesions. The study is nested in a large Italian multi-centre randomised controlled trial recruiting women in population-based screening programs that actively invite women aged 25-64 years. The study population includes HPV-positive women with CIN2 and CIN3 or without hgCIN lesion. For the discovery phase libraries of 100 samples of exfoliated cervical cells have been set up for miRNA sequencing. For the validation an additional set of 250 samples has already been selected. Preliminary results shows that, after correction for multiple testing, 44 miRNAs resulted dysregulated in women with vs. those without prevalent hgCIN. This set includes some miRNAs previously reported in the literature, such as miR-100 and miR-126, and other additional miRNAs not included in arrays before. The association of miRNAs with occurrence of hgCIN and clearance of infection during follow up reveals other significantly differentially expressed miRNAs under investigation for their biological roles. The high stability of miRNAs, in contrast to the fast degradation of mRNA and proteins, allows their accurate determination also in samples of exfoliated cervical collected during screening. Validation of the results, associations with other investigated markers and with HPV genotypes will be performed. Study supported by Italian Association on Cancer Research (AIRC, IG2013 N.14119). Citation Format: Alessio Naccarati, Daniela De Maria, Francesca Cordero, Barbara Pardini, Stavrula Gouzounis, Maddalena Arigoni, Raffaella Rizzolo, Laura De Marco, Anna Gillio-Tos, Paolo Vineis, Guglielmo Ronco. miRNA as markers of CIN risk and persistence for optimization of HPV-based cervical cancer screening. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-366.