ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1604960
This article is part of the Research TopicCommunity Series in Immunological Precision Therapeutics: Integrating Multi-Omics Technologies and Comprehensive Approaches for Personalized Immune Intervention: Volume IIView all 14 articles
Epithelial cells with high TOP2A expression promote cervical cancer progression by regulating the transcription factor FOXM1
Provisionally accepted
- First Affiliated Hospital of Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background：Cervical cancer (CC) remains a major malignancy threatening women's health, with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions playing a critical role in the progression toward CC. Exploring the molecular characteristics of epithelial cells (EPCs) as high-stage intraepithelial neoplasia evolves into CC is essential for the development of effective targeted drugs for cervical cancer. Singlecell RNA sequencing technology can fully understand the immune response at each molecular level, providing new ideas and directions for the precise treatment of CC.RNA sequencing was employed to comprehensively map EPCs characteristics. The differentiation trajectory of EPCs was inferred using Slingshot, while enrichment analysis highlighted the biological functions of EPCs. Cellchat visualized cell-cell interactions, and SCENIC was used to infer transcription factor regulatory networks in EPCs. CCK-8, colony formation, and EDU experiments were used to verify cell proliferation changes. Scratch assays and transwell assays were used to verify cell migration and invasion. Results: A distinct EPCs subpopulation with high TOP2A expression was identified, predominantly originating from tumor tissues. This subpopulation exhibited disrupted mitosis and cell cycle regulation, along with features of high proliferation, high energy metabolism, and matrix plasticity. It played a key role in shaping the tumor microenvironment via the LAMC1-(ITGA3-ITGB1) signaling pathway. FOXM1, a key transcription factor in this cell subpopulation, significantly inhibited the proliferation and invasion of cervical cancer cells.Through in-depth analysis of EPCs, this study provides promising insights and potential therapeutic targets for precision targeted treatment strategies for CC.
Keywords: Epithelial Cells, cervical cancer, FoxM1, single-cell RNA sequencing, TOP2A
Received: 02 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sun, Chen and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wei Sun, First Affiliated Hospital of Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.