title: Presence of human papillomavirus type 18 DNA in vulvar carcinomas and its integration into the cell genome.
abstract: We have screened 78 genital tract tumours from Italian female patients for the presence of human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) and HPV-18 DNA. Dot and Southern blot hybridization experiments revealed that DNA sequences of HPV-16 and/or HPV-18 are present in 66% of tumour samples. HPV-18 was detected in 80% of vulvar carcinomas. In these tumours the integration of HPV-18 DNA seems to occur in the E1/E2 region of the virus genome with long deletions in almost all samples. The invariable retention of the non-coding region and the E6/E7 open reading frames suggests that the integration event and the possible expression of these sequences could play a role in some stages of cellular transformation.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Virology, Regina Elena Institute for Cancer Research, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Venuti
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Marcante
mesh_terms: D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000235:genetics*; D002872:Chromosome Deletion; D003062:Codon / Q000235:genetics; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics*; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005796:Genes; D005814:Genes, Viral; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D027383:Papillomaviridae / Q000235:genetics*; D014846:Vulvar Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D003062:Codon; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D004279:DNA, Viral