title: Sequence conservation within the major capsid protein of human papillomavirus (HPV) type 18 and formation of HPV-18 virus-like particles in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
abstract: The major capsid protein L1 of human papillomaviruses (HPVs) has been identified as a promising candidate antigen for a prophylactic HPV vaccine. Since amino acid sequence heterogeneity has been demonstrated for the L1 genes within individual HPV types, nucleotide sequences of L1 were determined from six HPV-18 clinical isolates and the cervical carcinoma cell line SW756 and compared to the published HPV-18 prototype sequence. The sequences were almost identical between the clinical isolates and SW756 but differed markedly from the published prototype sequence. Resequencing the prototype HPV-18 revealed that these differences were due to sequencing artifacts of the prototype HPV-18 sequence archived in GenBank. Thus, the HPV-18 L1 genes seem to display a very high level of sequence conservation. The HPV-18 L1 gene derived from SW756 was expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and self-assembly of the L1 protein into virus-like particles was demonstrated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Virus and Cell Biology, Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, Pennsylvania 19486, USA.
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Hofmann
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Neeper
authors.forename: H Z
authors.initials: HZ
authors.lastname: Markus
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: K U
authors.initials: KU
authors.lastname: Jansen
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D002213:Capsid / Q000235:genetics* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D027383:Papillomaviridae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000648:ultrastructure; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral; D011994:Recombinant Proteins