Dynamic expression of ITGB1 in peripheral blood: a new biomarker for noninvasive diagnosis of squamous intraepithelial lesion to cervical cancer
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17161/sjm.v3i4.26171Keywords:
Integrin β1 (ITGB1); Squamous intraepithelial lesion (SIL); Cervical cancer (CC); Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs); BiomarkerAbstract
Objective: Integrin β1 (ITGB1) plays a role in cancer progression; however, its potential as a blood-based biomarker in cervical carcinogenesis remains unclear. This study investigated the expression level of ITGB1 in the peripheral blood of patients with cervical cancer and precancerous lesions to evaluate its potential as a non-invasive biomarker.
Methods: Multi-platform analyses, including bioinformatic screening (GEO/TCGA) and experimental validation, were conducted using clinical samples from the control, squamous intraepithelial lesion (SIL), and cervical cancer (CC) groups. The upregulation of ITGB1 expression across different sample types was thoroughly examined using several analytical methods.
Results: The results showed that ITGB1 expression increased significantly with the progression of cervical disease in all sample types (all P < 0.05). High ITGB1 levels were associated with poor prognosis, with its expression predominantly localized to the membrane of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Significant differences in human papillomavirus (HPV) status and inflammatory markers (%NEUT, %LYMPH) were also observed among the groups.
Conclusions: Overall, ITGB1 demonstrates potential as a reliable non-invasive biomarker for the early detection and monitoring of cervical cancer and its precancerous stages, showing consistent overexpression and strong clinical significance.
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Data Availability Statement
The patient data used in this study were obtained from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, but these data are restricted due to privacy and ethical considerations and are not publicly available. Relevant data can be accessed upon reasonable request by contacting the corresponding authors.
This study also utilized publicly available data from the GEO database and the GEPIA2 database, with dataset numbers GSE63514 and CESC. These datasets can be accessed through the following links:
GSE63514: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgiacc=GSE63514
TCGA‑CESC: https://portal.gdc.cancer.gov/projects/TCGA-CESC
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Copyright (c) 2026 Zhaoqing Sun, Menghan Gao, Zikai Zhao, Weina Li, Yuanyuan Zhou, Guiguo Zhang, Yu Zhang, Guanghai Liu, Chunhua Liu, Hui Zhang (Author)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.