Production of human papillomavirus type 16 virus-like particles in transgenic plants.

Cervical cancer is linked to infection with human papillomaviruses (HPV) and is the third most common cancer among women worldwide. There is a strong demand for the development of an HPV preventive vaccine. Transgenic plants expressing the HPV major capsid protein L1 could be a system to produce virus-like particles for prophylactic vaccination or could even be used as edible vaccines to induce an L1-specific prophylactic immune response. Here, we describe the generation of transgenic tobacco and potato plants carrying the HPV type 16 major structural gene L1 under the control of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter. All attempts to express either the original, unmodified L1 gene or an L1 gene with a codon usage optimized for expression in plants failed. Surprisingly, small amounts of the protein were detected using an L1 gene optimized for expression in human cells. However, Northern blot analysis revealed that most of the L1 transcripts were degraded. Introduction of the translational enhancer Omega derived from the tobacco mosaic virus strongly increased transcript stability and resulted in accumulation of L1 protein to approximately 0.5 to 0.2% of total soluble protein in transgenic tobacco and potato plants, respectively. The plant-derived L1 protein displayed conformation-specific epitopes and assembled into virus-like particles. Furthermore, we did not find any indications of protein modification of the L1 protein produced in plants. Plant-derived L1 was as immunogenic as L1 expressed in baculovirus-infected insect cells. Feeding of tubers from transgenic potatoes to mice induced an anti-L1 antibody response in 3 out of 24 mice, although this response was only transient in two of the mice. Our data, however, indicate that an anti-L1 response was primed in about half of the 24 animals.

The patched polymorphism Pro1315Leu (C3944T) may modulate the association between use of oral contraceptives and breast cancer risk.

The gene coding for the human homologue of the Drosophila segment polarity gene patched (PTCH1) is mutated in several common human tumors. In mice, haplodeficiency at the Ptch1 locus results in severe histologic defects in mammary ductal structure. We found no mutations within the coding region of PTCH1 in 17 human primary breast carcinomas. However, the biallelic Pro1315Leu (C3944T) polymorphism of PTCH1 was significantly associated with breast cancer in 41 Bavarian patients compared to 85 healthy controls. We investigated whether this variant influences susceptibility for breast cancer in 611 breast cancer patients diagnosed by age 50 years and 1,057 controls matched by age and study region in Germany and in 1,093 breast cancer patients from the United Kingdom. Allele and genotype frequencies were not different between cases and controls. However, multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed an effect modification of oral contraceptive use (OC) on breast cancer risk by Leu-carrier status. Compared to women who have Pro/Pro and never used OC, Pro/Pro OC users had an increased odds ratio for breast cancer of 1.7. The odds ratio was also 1.7 for Leu-carriers who never used OC, but this was attenuated among Leu-carriers who ever used OC by 20%. The gene-environmental interaction was confirmed in case-only analysis of the German and British studies, yielding an interaction odds ratio of 0.7 for premenopausal women (p = 0.06). Longer duration of pill use was associated with a significantly greater risk reduction (p for trend = 0.015). Our novel observation of a differential effect of OC use on breast cancer risk by PTCH1 1315Leu-carrier status suggests the interesting possibility of the Sonic hedgehog/Patched (SHH/PTCH1) signaling pathway being involved in hormone-induced development of breast carcinoma.