Microecology is an emerging discipline in recent years. The female reproductive tract is an important microecological region, and its microecological environment can directly affect women’s cervical health. This meta-analysis aimed to analyze the effects of vaginal microecology on Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). PubMed and Web of Science were systematically searched for eligible publications from January 2000 to December 2017. Articles were selected on the basis of specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. The design and quality of all studies were evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). Odds ratios (ORs) with a 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated. Thirteen eligible studies were selected to evaluate the association of vaginal microecology with HPV infection and CIN. The factors related to HPV infection were bacterial vaginosis (BV) (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.78–3.71, P<0.05), Candida albicans (VVC) (OR 0.63, 95% CI 0.49–0.82, P < 0.05), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) (OR 3.16, 95% CI 2.55–3.90, P < 0.05), and Ureaplasma urealyticum (UU) (OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.20–1.51, P < 0.05). BV was also related to CIN (OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.21–2.00, P < 0.05). This meta-analysis of available literature suggested an intimate association of vaginal microecology and HPV infection with CIN. BV, CT and UU were associated to increased HPV infection, VVC was associated to decreased HPV infection, Lactobacillus is not associated to increased HPV infection, BV was associated to increased CIN development risk. Further large-scale studies are needed to confirm our findings.

Introduction: Ovarian cancer (OV) is a common malignancy affecting women globally; recognizing useful biomarkers has been one of the key priorities. Since SCNN1A was reported to be relevant to tumor progression in a variety of cancers, but rarely in ovarian cancer, we explored the roles of SCNN1A in OV. Methods: RNA sequencing data from TCGA and GEO were utilized to analyze the expression of SCNN1A and related differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in ovarian cancer. We performed GO, GSEA and immune cell infiltration analysis on SCNN1A-associated DEGs. Correlation of SCNN1A methylation levels and its mRNA expression was analyzed by cBioPortal and UCSC Xena databases. To assess the prognostic impact of SCNN1A, Kaplan–Meier plot analysis and Cox regression analysis were performed; ROC curves and nomogram were also plotted. Results: Compared to normal tissues, SCNN1A was highly expressed in ovarian cancer. The methylation level of SCNN1A negatively correlated with the SCNN1A expression. Moreover, high expression of SCNN1A was correlated with poor prognosis in OV patients and associated with immune infiltrates. Conclusion: High SCNN1A expression could be a promising biomarker for poor outcomes in OV and correlated with tumor immune cells infiltration. The findings might help illuminate the function of SCNN1A in tumorigenesis and lay a foundation for further research.

Objective: To study the potential mechanism of Lactobacillus crispatus inhibiting cervical squamous intraepithelial lesion (SIL) and screen the early warning factors of SIL. Methods: The effects of Lactobacillus crispatus on the proliferation, apoptosis, cross pore migration and invasion and cytokines of cervical precancerous cells Ect1/E6E7 were detected respectively. The effect of Lactobacillus crispatus on the expression of differential proteins screened in Ect1/E6E7 cells were detected by Western blot. Results: Lactobacillus crispatus significantly inhibited the proliferation, induced apoptosis and inhibited cell migration of Ect1/E6E7 cells in a time-dependent manner (P < 0.05), but had no significant effect on cell invasion. Lactobacillus crispatus significantly promoted the secretion of Th1 cytokines and inhibited the secretion of Th2 cytokines by Ect1/E6E7 cells (P < 0.05). In addition, compared with SiHa cells in the control group, the expression of differential proteins PCNA, ATM, LIG1 and HMGB1 in Ect1/E6E7cells decreased significantly, while the expression of TDG and OGG1 proteins increased significantly (P < 0.05). ABCG2 protein in Ect1/E6E7 cells was slightly higher than that in SiHa cells, but the difference was not statistically significant. What is interesting is that Lactobacillus crispatus significantly inhibited the expression of ABCG2, PCNA, ATM, LIG1, OGG1 and HMGB1 proteins in Ect1/E6E7 cells, and promoted the expression of TDG protein. Conclusions: Lactobacillus crispatus may inhibit the function of Ect1/E6E7 cells through multiple pathways and exert the potential to reverse the progression of SIL.

The treatment of newly diagnosed advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) was predicted by an ovarian cancer computed tomography (CT) evaluation model combined with serum CA125. Clinical data for 194 patients with advanced EOC treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) combined with interval debulking surgery (IDS) or primary debulking surgery (PDS) were retrospectively analyzed, and the appropriate treatment was predicted by comparing the subgroup differences in intraoperative situations, postoperative situations and survival rates. There were no significant differences with respect to operation time, intraoperative blood loss, ideal tumor cytoreductive rate or postoperative complication rate between the NACT + IDS group and the PDS group with scores less than 5 (score < 5) (p = 0.764, p = 0.504, p = 0.906, p = 0.176). However, there was a statistically significant difference in overall survival rate between the two groups (p = 0.029), with better survival in the PDS group than in the NACT + IDS group. There were significant differences between the NACT + IDS group and the PDS group with scores greater than or equal to 5 (score ≥ 5). The former was better than the latter in terms of operation time, intraoperative blood loss, ideal tumor cytoreductive rate, and postoperative complication rate (p = 0.002, p = 0.040, p = 0.014, p = 0.021). However, there was no significant difference in overall survival rate between the two groups (p = 0.383). According to the new evaluation system, for a score < 5, we suggest that patients with newly diagnosed advanced EOC undergo PDS; for a score ≥ 5, we recommend NACT + IDS.

Objective: This study aims to prepare candidate vaccines for cervical cancer immunotherapy by inserting the fused genes of human papillomavirus (HPV)16/18/58 mE6E7 lacking transforming activity into an adenovirus vector and to verify its efficiency in model mice with tumor expressing the associated HPV genes. Methods: The E6/E7 genes of HPV16/18/58 were point-mutated to abolish their transforming activity, and adenovirus (AD)-HPV16/18/58 mE6E7 adenovirus vaccine was constructed. The immune effect of the adenovirus vaccine against HPV16/18/58-type tumors was analyzed by tumor morphology, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay, enzyme-linked immunospot and specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) and T lymphocyte subsets. Results: The HPV16/18/58 mE6E7 plasmid containing point mutations was verified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), enzyme digestion and electrophoresis, and gene sequencing. qRT-PCR and Western blots verified that AD-HPV16/18/58 mE6E7 could express the HPV16 mE6E7, HPV18 mE6E7 and HPV58 mE6E7 fusion genes and proteins in cells. The results of animal experiments were as follows: In the vaccine group, the tumors formed later, the incubation period was longer, the growth was slower, growth was inhibited, and the survival period was significantly prolonged. The immunological results all showed that the vaccine could induce effective humoral and cellular immunity in mice with three types of tumors, compared with the phosphate buffered saline (PBS) group and the adenovirus-negative control (AD-NC) group, the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). Conclusion: We successfully constructed the HPV16/18/58 trivalent therapeutic adenovirus vaccine AD-HPV16/18/58 mE6E7. The AD-HPV16/18/58 mE6E7 adenovirus vaccine can protect immunized mice to a certain extent from TC-1, U14/LV-HPV18 E6E7 and U14/LV-HPV58 E6E7 cells, which contain HPV16, 18 and 58 E6 and/or E7 genes, respectively.

Background: To study the risk factors involved in the occurrence and progression of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and to establish predictive models. Methods: Genemania was used to build a gene network. Then, the core gene-related pathways associated with the occurrence and progression of CIN were screened in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database. Real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) experiments were performed to verify the differential expression of the identified genes in different tissues. R language was used for predictive model establishment. Results: A total of 10 genes were investigated in this study. A total of 30 cases of cervical squamous cell cancer (SCC), 52 cases of CIN and 38 cases of normal cervix were enrolled. Compared to CIN cases, the age of patients in the SCC group was older, the number of parities was greater, and the percentage of patients diagnosed with CINII+ by TCT was higher. The expression of TGFBR2, CSKN1A1, PRKCI and CTBP2 was significantly higher in the SCC groups. Compared to patients with normal cervix tissue, the percentage of patients who were HPV positive and were diagnosed with CINII+ by TCT was significantly higher. FOXO1 expression was significantly higher in CIN tissue, but TGFBR2 and CTBP2 expression was significantly lower in CIN tissue. The significantly different genes and clinical factors were included in the models. Conclusions: Combination of clinical and significant genes to establish the random forest models can provide references to predict the occurrence and progression of CIN.