Infiltration Patterns of Cervical Epithelial Microenvironment Cells During Carcinogenesis

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Immunology
• Computational Biology

Background:

• The local cellular microenvironment is critical in human papillomavirus (HPV)-induced cervical malignant transformation.
• Understanding dynamic immune cell infiltration during cervical carcinogenesis is essential for elucidating underlying mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To comprehensively characterize microenvironment cell infiltration patterns throughout cervical cancer progression.
• To evaluate and compare the performance of computational methods for estimating immune cell abundance.

Main Methods:

• Utilized three public gene expression datasets of cervical squamous epithelium.
• Applied seven computational methods to estimate CD4+ and CD8+ T cell infiltration, comparing results to known fractions.
• Clustered determined cell infiltration patterns using fuzzy c-means algorithm.

Main Results:

• Most computational methods showed higher accuracy for CD4+ T cell abundance prediction than CD8+ T cell.
• Identified infiltration patterns for 33 microenvironment cell types, including 31 immune and 2 non-immune cells.
• Derived five distinct immune cell clusters and observed opposing abundance changes between activated and resting immune cells during progression.

Conclusions:

• Provided the first comprehensive overview of microenvironment cell infiltration patterns across cervical cancer progression.
• Highlighted the differential performance of computational methods in immune cell abundance estimation.
• Revealed dynamic shifts in immune cell populations, offering insights into cervical carcinogenesis.