Molecular Heterogeneity of Cervical Cancer Among Different Ethnic/Racial Populations

The study aimed to find differential gene mutation profile and gene expression status among different ethnic/racial human populations relevant for cervical cancer pathogenesis. The study was based on freely available datasets of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) of cervical cancer samples in Genomic Data Commons (GDC) data portal. We identified that choline metabolism in cancer and Ras signaling pathways were significantly associated with the Hispanic and Latino group of cervical cancer patients. In these pathways, mutations in the PIK3CA gene, especially E545K, were significantly associated with the Hispanic and LATINO group. We found that AFF3 gene mutation was associated with downregulation of its expression only among the White racial category of cervical cancer cases. Additionally, hypomethylation of the CpG position in the S shore region of the PM20D1 gene was associated with overexpression among the Asian category of cervical cancer cases. Heterogeneity of the molecular profile of AFF3 and PM20D1 gene among racial groups reflects the potential of differential targeted therapy of cervical cancer.