现已公认子宫颈癌发生与高危型人乳头瘤病毒（HPV）感染密切相关，但单一的HPV持续感染不足以诱发子宫颈上皮细胞的恶性转化。新近研究表明，长链非编码RNA（lncRNA）在肿瘤演进过程中有重要的调控作用。我们的前期研究已明确lncRNA-CAI2在宫颈癌中明显高表达；生物信息学靶基因预测也表明，在宫颈癌中CAI2可能直接调控9p21染色体上的ARF/p53通路基因。因此，本项目拟应用RNA pull-down、RIP和CRISPR-Cas9等生物学技术，通过体内外功能获得及功能缺失实验，深入研究CAI2在子宫颈癌中的作用及机制，明确其直接调控靶基因和蛋白；并结合大样本量子宫颈癌患者的血样和组织标本以及临床生物学信息分析，研究CAI2及其靶基因的分子标志物作用。研究结果将揭示CAI2及其靶基因在子宫颈癌演进过程中的作用及分子机制，为子宫颈癌的预后评估和侵袭转移控制提供新的标志物和治疗靶点。

It is well known that the occurrence of uterine cervical cancer is closely related with the high-risk human papilloma virus (HPV) infection; however, a single persistent HPV infection is not sufficient to induce malignant transformation of cervical epithelial cells. Recent studies showed that the long non coding RNA (lncRNA) has an important role in the regulation of tumor progression. Our previous study demonstrated that lncRNA-CAI2 is highly expressed in cervical cancer compared with the normal counterpart, and the bioinformatics prediction showed that CAI2 might be directly target the ARF/p53 pathway on the 9p21 chromosome, which closely related with the uterine cervical cancer. Therefore, this project proposed to study the exact role and its mechanism of CAI2 deeply in cervical cancer progression through the gain and loss of function experiments in vivo and in vitro using RNA pull-down, RIP and CRISPR-Cas9 biological technologies, and to make clear the direct target genes and proteins to CAI2; moreover, the function of CAI2 and its target genes on prognostic evaluation of cervical cancers will be investigated combining with the analysis of clinical and biological information in a larger sample of blood and tissue of patients with cervical cancer. The results will reveal the role and its molecular mechanisms of CAI2 and its target genes in cervical cancer progression, and it will provide new early warning biomarkers and therapeutic targets for prognostic evaluation and the control of invasion and metastasis in cervical cancers.