MAL and infection: In cervical cancer, nitric oxide-induced inflammation is also culpable for affecting the promoter methylation levels of multiple genes, including cancer-related genes, e.g., protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type R (PTPRR), and genes with immune functions, e.g., T-lymphocyte maturation-associated protein (MAL) (Su et al., 2017; Holubekova et al., 2020), thereby establishing the causal connection between infection-driven inflammatory signaling and its downstream epigenetic changes.