Hyperactivated YAP1 Drives an Invasive EMT Subtype of Cervical Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Cervical cancer (CVC) is classically understood as an HPV-driven disease in which high-risk HPV infects cervical basal epithelial cells, induces neoplastic transformation, and drives upward epithelial expansion, pathogenic events underlying the success of cytology- and HPV-based screening. With widespread HPV vaccination and screening, the WHO has launched the CVC elimination initiative and believes that CVC will be the first cancer that would be eliminated as a public health problem. However, statistics showed that CVC remains the most common gynecologic malignancy worldwide, and in the United States, where HPV testing and Pap smears have reached near-maximal implementation, the CVC mortality rate has plateaued for more than two decades. These epidemiologic trends suggest the existence of a subset of CVC that can escape current screening strategies. Here, we demonstrate that hyperactivation of YAP1 caused by disruption of Hippo-YAP signaling is sufficient to induce a subtype of HPV-independent invasive CVC that lacks surface lesions and therefore evades HPV- and cytology-based detection. Using single-cell RNA sequencing combined with high-resolution spatial transcriptomics, we define the cellular architecture, molecular pathways, and immune microenvironment underlying this invasive subtype. We show that YAP1-driven tumors adopt an EMT-high transcriptional state and selectively recruit immunosuppressive myeloid-derived suppressor cells that functionally interact with cancer cells to promote invasion and progression. Our findings suggest that targeting the disrupted Hippo signaling may offer a new strategy to prevent the subset of invasive CVC that current HPV- and Pap-based programs cannot detect, an essential step toward achieving global CVC elimination.

bioRxiv