Transcriptional expression of survivin and its splice variants in cervical carcinomas

The objective of this study was to evaluate transcriptional expression of survivin and the two splice variants (survivin-2B and survivin-DeltaEx3) in cervical carcinomas. The gene expression levels of survivin and its splice variants in 11 human cervical carcinoma cell lines and 20 malignant and 12 normal cervical tissue samples were analyzed using quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis. Gene expression levels of survivin and survivin-DeltaEx3 in cell lines were higher than those in normal cervical tissues (P= 0.0193 and 0.0489). Transcript levels of survivin and survivin-DeltaEx3 in carcinoma tissues were also higher than those in normal controls (P= 0.0016 and 0.0011). Gene expression levels of survivin and survivin-DeltaEx3 in adenocarcinomas were statistically higher than those in squamous cell carcinomas (P= 0.0260 and 0.0487). There was no significant difference in survivin-2B gene expression between malignant and normal cervical samples or different histologic types. The ratios of survivin-2B/survivin and survivin-DeltaEx3/survivin in carcinoma tissues were higher than those in normal controls (P= 0.0288 and 0.0081). Interestingly, the ratio of survivin-2B/survivin was increased in the patients with higher stages and with pelvic lymph node metastasis (P= 0.0205 and 0.0437), respectively. We conclude that survivin and its splice variants might be involved in the pathogenesis and development of cervical carcinomas.