In comparison to HPV-negative CESC patients (n = 9), HPV-positive CESC patients in the TCGA-CESC cohort showed significantly lower expression levels of DDR and PACT_TRBP, but higher expression levels of OAS_RNAseL and RLR (Additional file 1: Fig. S1A). Here, SMOC1 is linked to cervical squamous cell carcinoma.