High DHCR7 Expression Predicts Poor Prognosis for Cervical Cancer

DHCR7 is a rate-limiting enzyme in cholesterol synthesis. The expression pattern and prognostic value of DHCR7 in cervical cancer are unknown. We investigated the relationship between DHCR7 expression and clinicopathological features of cervical cancer patients. The dataset was acquired from TCGA database. The Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to explore DHCR7 expression level in cervical cancer. The Kruskal-Wallis test and the logistic regression were performed to estimate the association between the DHCR7 and clinical features. The Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate factors that affect cervical cancer prognosis. GSEA was used to screen the DHCR7-related pathways. We found that DHCR7 was increased in cervical cancer samples and increased DHCR7 was correlated with advanced T stage, lymph node invasion, and clinical stage (P < 0.05). Patients with elevated DHCR7 levels had poorer overall survival (P = 0.021), progression-free interval (P = 0.002), and disease-specific survival (P = 0.005). Cox analysis revealed that DHCR7 was an independent prognostic factor in cervical cancer (P = 0.005). WNT activated receptor activity, G2/M checkpoint, mTORC1 signaling, KRAS signaling, regulation of cholesterol biosynthetic, FGF signaling, T-cell receptor signaling, JAK/STAT signaling cascade T cell activation, and macrophage migration were enriched in high DHCR7 phenotype. Our data also showed that DHCR7 moderately correlates with T-cell infiltration, including CD8⁺ T-cells. Conclusion. Increased DHCR7 expression is associated with poor survival in cervical cancer.