Awareness about cervical cancer, HPV and HPV vaccine.

<p>*Number indicate participants who had knowledge about cervical cancer and know the causative agent.</p><p>**Number indicate participants who had both knowledge and know the causative agent.</p><p>***General opinion among all participants.</p><p>Awareness about cervical cancer, HPV and HPV vaccine.</p

Correlation of HPV infection with Notch-1 protein expression in ISCC.

<p>*p≤0.05 is considered as significant.</p

Clinical Impact of De-Regulated Notch-1 and Notch-3 in the Development and Progression of HPV-Associated Different Histological Subtypes of Precancerous and Cancerous Lesions of Human Uterine Cervix

<div><p>Background</p><p>Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths among women in India. Limited reports are available for Notch-1 and Notch-3 protein in cervical carcinoma, which play crucial role in cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis.</p><p>Methods</p><p>This study was designed to evaluate the role of Notch-1 and Notch-3 with context to HPV infection in cervical carcinoma. A total of 168 tissue biopsy samples comprising of tumor specimens (n = 98), precancer (n = 30) and non-neoplastic cervical tissues (n = 40) were screened for HPV infection by PCR and expression of Notch-1 and Notch-3 protein by Immunohistochemistry and Immunoblotting.</p><p>Results</p><p>80% (24/30) were found to be positive for HPV in precancer and 86.7% (85/98) in cancer patients. Notch-1 expression of precancer and cancer cases was found to be significantly down-regulated with severity of disease in nuclear (3.43±0.29; 2.04±0.19, p = 0.0001, p = 0.0001) and cytoplasm (3.07±0.29; 2.29±0.17, p = 0.0001, p = 0.0001) obtained from different stages as compared to normal cervix tissue (5.40±0.19, 4.97±0.15; p<0.001; p<0.001). However, Notch-3 expression of above cases was significantly up-regulated with severity of disease and showed intense nuclear (4.17±0.39; 4.74±0.18, p = 0.0001, p = 0.0001) and cytoplasm (3.67±0.36; 4.48±0.18, p = 0.0001, p = 0.0001) of different stages as compared to normal cervix tissue (0.95±0.20, 0.70±0.20; p<0.001; p<0.001) respectively.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>These findings suggest that Notch-1 and Notch-3 may play an important role with synergistic effect of HPV in regulating development and proliferation of cervical cancer through the deregulation of Notch signalling. This study also shows the clinical utility of both proteins which may be used as predictable biomarkers in diagnosing different histological sub-types of HPV associated cervical cancer. Nevertheless, abnormal activation of this pathway may provide legitimate targets for cervical cancer therapy.</p></div

Demographic characteristics of the population studied.

<p>Demographic characteristics of the population studied.</p

Total score (Intensity score + Percentage positivity, Mean ± S.E) of Notch-1 and Notch-3 expression in normal, precancerous and cancer tissues.

<p>p-values are calculated using the chi-square test.</p><p>* p≤0.05 was considered significant.</p>▾<p>Downregulation;^▴Upregulation.</p

Detection of Human Papilloma virus genotypes 16 and 18 in precancer & cervical cancer patients by In vitro nucleic acid amplification test.

<p>(<b>A</b>) β-globin, 288bp (<b>B</b>) HPV-L1, 450bp (<b>C</b>) HPV-16, 217bp (<b>D</b>) HPV-18, 100bp as indicated in Materials and Methods section.</p

Comparison of awareness among Females and Males.

<p>Comparison of awareness among Females and Males.</p

Awareness about cervical cancer and HPV according to living area.

<p>Awareness about cervical cancer and HPV according to living area.</p

Immuno-histochemical analysis of Notch-1 and Notch-3 showing expression pattern of Notch-1 and Notch-3 in normal, precancerous and cancer tissues of uterine cervix.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Negative control of Notch-1 in normal tissue, 200X. (<b>B</b>) Intense nuclear, cytoplasmic expression and loss of membranous expression of Notch-1 in normal cervix, 200X. (<b>C</b>) Moderate nuclear expression of Notch-1 in precancrous tissue, 200X. (<b>D</b>) Negative control (ISCC, 200X). (<b>E</b>) Mild cytoplasmic localization and loss of nuclear Notch-1 in ISCC, 200X. (<b>F</b>) Membranous positive and loss of nuclear expression of Notch-1 in ISCC, 400X. (<b>G</b>) Negative control of Notch-3, 200X. (<b>H</b>) Cytoplasmic localization and loss of nuclear Notch-3 in normal cervix, 200X. (<b>I</b>) Cytoplasmic and nuclear localization of Notch-3 in precancer, 200X. (<b>J</b>) Negative control of Notch-3 (ISCC, 200X). (<b>K</b>) Cytoplasmic and Nuclear localization And loss of membranous Notch-3 in ISCC, 200X as indicated in Materials and Methods section. (<b>L</b>, <b>M</b>) Bar graph showing distribution of total scores of Notch-1 and Notch-3 protein in Normal cervix, Precancer and Invasive squamous cervical carcinoma (ISCC) tissues. The vertical axis shows the total Immunostaining score (cytoplasmic or nuclear respectively), obtained as described in the Methods section. (<b>N</b>) Western blots showing expression pattern of Notch-1 and Notch-3 protein during the progression of cervical cancer. Protein extracts from cervical tumor biopsies as well as normal tissues were separated in 10% SDS-PAGE and detected by specific antibodies of Notch-1 and Notch-3 protein. All the blots were stripped and reprobed for β-actin levels to confirm equal loading and the quantitation of bands was performed densitometrically as indicated in Materials and Methods section.</p

Positive percentage of Notch-1 and Notch-3 expression in normal, precancerous and cancer tissues.

<p>p-values are calculated using the chi-square test. * p≤0.05 was considered significant.</p