Objective To investigate the expression of human papillomavirus E2 mRNA in cervical cytologi-cal specimens as well as the role of that in cervical carcinogenesis and its clinical significance in screening and evalat-ing prognosis of cervical lesions.Methods The expression of E2 mRNA in 582 cases of cervical cytological speci-mens with high risk human papillomavirus infection and cytological diagnosis of NILM,ASCUS and LSIL,was detected by RT -PCR.Thereafter,all cases were divided into the four groups by colposcopy and histopathological confirmation, including 414 cases of cervicitis,95 cases of CINⅠ,51 cases of CINⅡ,20 cases of CINⅢ and 2 cases of invasive cervical carcinoma as well.Results The expression of HPV -E2 mRNA decreased dramatically corresponding with pathological upgrading from groups of cervicitis to invasive cervical carcinoma (χ2 =132.72,P <0.05).The sensitiv-ity,specificity,positive predictive value and negative predictive value of HPV -E2 mRNA for screening potential cervical lesions in group of NILM,ASCUS and LSIL were 77.2%,96.8%,75.6%,96.0% and 81.0%,91.7%, 79.1%,92.6% as well as 95.9%,93.4%,94.7%,95.0% respectively.Conclusion Deletion of HPV -E2 induced by genetic disruption played an important role in the early stage of malignant transformation of cervical epithe-lial cells.Therefore,detection of the levels of HPV -E2 mRNA expression might be clinically valuable for the screen-ing and evaluating of prognosis in cervical lesions.