PRMT1 expression predicts response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced uterine cervical cancer

The standard care for patients with locally advanced cervical cancer is concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Successful neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) can reduce tumor size and enable patients to be eligible for a hysterectomy, which can improve their prognosis. Selecting the right candidate for NAC is important since NAC failure results in switching to radiation therapy and can lead to a worse prognosis due to a delay in the initiation of the core therapy. Therefore, the identification of biomarkers that can predict the effect of NAC is essential. Previous reports have suggested a relationship between protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT1) and chemoresistance in several types of cancer. PRMT1 has been demonstrated to methylate apoptosis signal-regulated kinase 1 and to inhibit its activity, thereby contributing to chemoresistance. The present study investigated the association between PRMT1 expression and the efficacy of NAC in locally advanced cervical cancer. Data from 53 patients with locally advanced uterine cervical cancer who were classified into two groups based on effective (n=28) and ineffective (n=25) responses to NAC treatment were evaluated. PRMT1 expression was investigated by immunohistochemistry and scored using a weighted scoring system. Additionally, the present study investigated the effect of RNA interference-mediated downregulation of PRMT1 on the sensitivity of cervical cancer cells to cisplatin in vitro. The results demonstrated that the NAC effective group had significantly lower weighted PRMT1 scores than the NAC ineffective group (P=0.030). In addition, lower tumor expression levels of PRMT1 were significantly associated with increased sensitivity to NAC (P=0.033). Furthermore, downregulation of PRMT1 expression in cervical cancer cells markedly improved their sensitivity to cisplatin in vitro. The present study suggested that PRMT1 expression has potential as a predictive marker of the efficacy of NAC in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer. This finding can contribute to improvements in the prognosis of these patients.