miRNAs signature as potential biomarkers for cervical precancerous lesions in Human Papillomavirus Positive women. miRNAs signature as potential biomarkers for cervical precancerous lesions in Human Papillomavirus Positive women

Cervical cancer ranks as the first in cancer mortality among women of low-middle income countries, where 80% of the 570,000 cases and 311,000 worldwide deaths estimated for 2018 occurred (Ferlay et al. 2018 ). Persistent infections with high-risk HPV (hrHPV) genotypes can lead to high-grade cervical intraepithelial (CIN) grade 2 (CIN2) or higher, (CIN2+), if untreated, a high percentage of these lesions may progress to cancer. Despite its high sensitivity, the hrHPV test has low specificity to detect CIN2+ lesions given that a high percentage of women (80 %) infected with hrHPV genotypes will resolve the infection spontaneously. microRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs and their differential expression patterns seen to be associated with cervical intraepithelial lesions. Our work aimed to identify miRNAs differentially expressed in CIN2+ respect with