The synergism of congeneric immune factors and antagonism of alien regulators might worsen the immune imbalance in cervical cancer microenvironment.
To discover whether mutual effect existed in local site among these factors, correlation analysis was conducted of their mRNA level. The results showed that the mRNA level of CCL22 was positively correlated with FoxP3 in neoplastic foci and adjacent tissues (r = 0.353, r = 0.307, P < 0.05) . Parallel outcome was observed between the mRNA level of FoxP3 and CCR4 (r = 0.607, r = 0.205, P < 0.05), CCL22 and CCR4 (r = 0.786, r = 0.344, P < 0.05), as well as OX40 and Smad3 (r = 0.384, r = 0.288, P < 0.05). The correlation analysis indicated that in immune microenvironment of cervical cancer, the mRNA level of CCL22 and CCR4 was strengthened as the Foxp3 mRNA level increased and vice verse. The pairwise correlation prompted that inhibitory regulators, FoxP3, CCL22 and CCR4 may magnify each other’s negative function through inducing mutual expression of mRNA, then synergistically promote local immunosuppression. As the mRNA level of OX40 and Smad3 was decreased in neoplastic foci and pericarcinous tissues, the potential congenerous effect of OX40 and Smad3 might be weakened in local microenvironment of cervical cancer. Conversely, the mRNA level of CCL22 seemed to be inversely related to OX40 (r = −0.288, r = −0.263, P < 0.05), which hinted us that there still underlies counteraction between CCL22 and OX40 to accentuate immune inhibition. While no correlations were found between other factors