AccScience Publishing / TD / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/TD026120026
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Integrated bioinformatic analysis of RNH1 role in cervical cancer: Methylation, expression, prognostic value, diagnostic value, and association with immune infiltration

Julio Ortiz-Ortiz1† ,  Hilda Jiménez-Wences1† ,  Adán Arizmendi-Izazaga1 ,  Ramón Antaño-Arias2 ,  Francisco I. Torres-Rojas2 ,  Paola Briseño-Díaz3 ,  Eric. G. Salmerón-Bárcenas4*
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1 Laboratory of Research in Metabolism and Cancer, Faculty of Chemical-Biological Sciences, Autonomous University of Guerrero, Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico
2 Laboratory of Molecular Biomedicine, Faculty of Chemical-Biological Sciences, Autonomous University of Guerrero, Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico
3 Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico
4 Department of Molecular Biomedicine, Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
Tumor Discovery, 026120026 https://doi.org/10.36922/TD026120026
Received: 20 March 2026 | Revised: 27 April 2026 | Accepted: 6 May 2026 | Published online: 26 May 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Cervical cancer (CC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer incidence and mortality among women worldwide. Currently, the survival rate in patients with advanced CC remains low. Thus, it is necessary to investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in CC. RNH1 has been reported as a tumor suppressor gene in several cancer types; its role in CC remains unclear. In this study, we analyzed the role of RNH1 in CC using a bioinformatics approach. Methylation of the RNH1 promoter was investigated using data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and GSE30760 datasets in the DiseaseMeth and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. RNH1 expression was evaluated in samples from TCGA, GSE9750, GSE7803, GSE67522, and the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) datasets in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Cancer Data Analysis Portal, GEO, and HPA platforms. The prognostic and diagnostic value of RNH1 expression was assessed using Kaplan–Meier and receiver operating characteristic curves. Genes correlated with RNH1 expression in CC were identified using the cBioPortal database. Pathway and Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analyses were performed using Enrichr. Finally, immune infiltration analysis was conducted using the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource database. Our results showed that the RNH1 promoter is aberrantly methylated in CC. Decreased RNH1 expression could be used as a prognostic and diagnostic biomarker in CC. Pathway and GO analyses identified terms associated with CC pathways and biological processes related to immune response. Furthermore, immune infiltration analysis demonstrated that RNH1 expression correlates with the presence of various immune cell types. In conclusion, our findings indicate that RNH1 plays a key role in CC.

Keywords
RNH1
Methylation
Biomarker
Immune infiltration
Cervical cancer
Bioinformatic analysis
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Tumor Discovery, Electronic ISSN: 2810-9775 Print ISSN: 3060-8597, Published by AccScience Publishing
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