Evidence for Placental HPV Infection in Both HIV Positive and Negative Women

Authors

Chrispin Chisanga, University of Nebraska -LincolnFollow
Dawn Eggert, University of Nebraska LincolnFollow
Charles D. Mitchell, University of Miami, School of Medicine
Charles Wood, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Peter C. Angeletti, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

2015

Citation

Journal of Cancer Therapy, 2015, 6, 1276-1289

Comments

© 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).

Abstract

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) have previously been reported to infect epithelial trophoblast cells of the placenta. To investigate this possibility, 200 placental samples from Zambian women were separated into HIV+ and HIV− groups and tested for HPV by redundant primer PCR, using GP5+/GP6+ and CPI/CPII primer sets. Three HPV genotypes (HPV6, 16 and 90) were detected in placental samples. Whereas, 20 different HPV genotypes were detected in vaginal sampling of the same patients, suggesting that compartment specific sub-populations of HPV may exist. The incidence of HPV16 in placental samples was almost 2-fold greater in HIV+ women compared to HIV− (p = 0.0241). HPV16 L1 expression, detected by immunochemistry, was significantly higher in HIV+ than HIV− samples (p = 0.0231). HPV16 DNA was detected in the nuclei of trophoblast cells by in situ hybridization. Overall, these results suggest that HPVs infect the placenta and that HIV significantly influences these infections.