Cervical cancer is a common malignant disease that poses a serious health threat to women worldwide. Growing research efforts have focused on protein‑coding and non‑coding RNAs involved in the
tumorigenesis and prognosis of various types of
cancer. The potential molecular mechanisms and the interaction among long non‑coding RNAs (lncRNAs), microRNAs (
miRNAs), and mRNAs require further investigation in
cervical cancer. In the present study,
lncRNA,
miRNA, and
mRNA expression profiles of 304 primary
tumor tissues from patients with
cervical cancer and 3 solid normal tissues from The
Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset were studied via
RNA sequencing (RNA‑seq). Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses were performed using R package clusterProfiler to annotate the principal functions of differentially expressed (DE) mRNAs. Kaplan‑Meier analysis was also conducted to investigate the effects of DElncRNAs, DEmiRNAs, and DEmRNAs on overall survival. A total of 2,255 mRNAs, 133 miRNAs, and 150 lncRNAs that were differentially expressed were identified with a threshold of P<0.05 and |fold change (FC)|>2. Functional enrichment analysis indicated that DEmRNAs were enriched in cancer‑associated KEGG pathways. Furthermore, 255 mRNAs, 15 miRNAs, and 12 lncRNAs that were significantly associated with overall survival in cervical
carcinoma were also identified. Importantly, an miRNA‑mediated competitive endogenous RNA (
ceRNA) network was successfully constructed based on the expression profiles of DElncRNAs and DEmRNAs. More importantly, it was found that the
lncRNA EPB41L4A‑AS1 may function as a pivotal regulator in
carcinoma of the uterine cervix. Taken together, the present study has provided novel insights into investigating the potential mechanisms underlying
tumorigenesis, development, and prognosis of
cervical cancer, and presented new potential avenues for
cancer therapeutics.