Cervical Cancer

Type

Cancer type (cervical carcinoma)

Role in Clonal Evolution

Cervical cancer is one of the six cancer types identified by Burns, Temiz, & Harris (2013) as showing convergent evidence for APOBEC3B-dependent mutagenesis: elevated APOBEC3B expression, strong C/G mutation bias (~90% of mutations at C/G pairs — among the highest across all cancers), cytosine mutation contexts matching recombinant APOBEC3B’s biochemical signature, and kataegis events. The extreme C/G bias in cervical cancer is unlikely to be attributable to UV exposure and points to enzymatic DNA deamination as the dominant mutational source (burns2013-apobec3b-multiple-cancers). HPV infection, the primary etiological agent in cervical cancer, may create a cellular environment conducive to APOBEC upregulation as part of the innate antiviral response, linking viral carcinogenesis to endogenous mutational processes.

Key References

• burns2013-apobec3b-multiple-cancers — Pan-cancer evidence for APOBEC3B mutagenesis; cervical cancer identified as a signature cancer type
• pcawg2020-pan-cancer-analysis — Pan-cancer genomic analysis