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