Genomic Analysis of Human Papillomavirus Type 16 in Cervical Cancer

ABSTRACT

To study the correlation of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection with clinical stage in cervical abnormalities, 17 cases of normal cervical tissue and 69 cases of abnormal cervical tissue (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and invasive cervical cancer) was examined by PCR with HPV-specific consensus primers. One case (5.9%) of normal cervical tissue and 42 cases (60.9%) of abnormal cervical tissues harbored HPV. To investigate the integration of HPV genome in 24 cases of HPV 16 positive cervical cancer, E2 gene of HPV 16 was amplified. Integration of HPV 16 was found in 7 cases (29.2%) with E2 disruption. All samples with E2 disruption were from invasive cervical cancer. A multiplex PCR for the mapping of integrated HPV 16 genome with an anchor primer and indicator primers showed that 11 cases (45.8%) were disrupted somewhere in HPV genome but E6, E7, and LCR regions were conserved in all cases. Seven types of integrated HPV genome from long- (7,062 bp) to short-conserved type (3,204 bp) with various deletions were detected by the multiplex PCR. These results show that integration can be detected more accurately by multiplex PCR than by E2 PCR, and E2 disruption is not a critical event of integration