Relationship between HPV16 infection and expression of telomerase hTERT in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and squamous cell carcinomas of the cervix uteri by tissue microarray technique

Objective To investigate the relationship between HPV16 infection and the expression of telomerase hTERT in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia(CIN) and squamous cell carcinomas(SCC) of the cervix uteri.Method Tissue microarray combined with in situ hybridzation(ISH) and immunohistochemical staining (EliVision~(TM) plus method) was used to detect the expression of HPV16 RNA and hTERT in all 130 cases of normal cervical tissue and CIN and SCC of the cervix uteri.Results The positive rate of HPV16 hibrid signals in CIN Ⅱ,CIN Ⅲ and SCC were all significantly higher than in normal cervical tissue(P0.05), and it was also higher in SCC than in CIN(P0.05).The rate of positive expression of hTERT protein in SCC/CIN Ⅲ/CIN Ⅱ were all significantly higher than in normal cervical tissue(P0.05) and was also significantly higher in SCC than in CIN cases(P0.05).The HPV16 infection and the positive expression of hTERT showed a positive correlation in the progress from CIN to SCC(P0.05,r=0.339).Conclusion There was a positive correlation between HPV16 infection and the expression of hTERT in process from CIN to SCC.Maybe it can revealed the detailed mechanism which HPV16 participate in malignant transformation.Also they can combined as cellular and viral biomarkers to help identify cervical carcinoma and cervical precursor lensions with a risk of malignant progression.Tissue microarray is an efficient technique to study genes and its expression product.