MAL expression downregulation through suppressive H3K27me3 marks at the promoter in HPV16-related cervical cancers is prognostically relevant and manifested by the interplay of novel MAL antisense long noncoding RNA AC103563.8, E7 oncoprotein and EZH2.

"availability of data materials raw rna seq bam files of individual patients can be accessed from european nucleotide archive (ena) via accession number: prjeb40877 and secondary accession number: erp124576. availability of data materials raw rna seq bam files of individual patients can be accessed from european nucleotide archive (ena) via accession number: prjeb40877"

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateAll patients provided informed consent before the study. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committees of all collaborating institutions (Saroj Gupta Cancer Centre and Research Institute, Kolkata, Tata Medical Center, Kolkata, and College of Medicine and Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hospital, Kalyani) and National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani. Competing interestsNone. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results. Competing interests None. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results."

"Funding The study was supported by Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, through research Grants (BT/Med-II/NIBMG/SyMeC/2014/Vol. II & BT/PR21452/MED/30/1781/2016) to Sharmila Sengupta."