title: Cutaneous human papillomavirus 88: remarkable differences in viral load.
abstract: A human papillomavirus (HPV) was cloned from a patient with multiple squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) and identified as HPV88, recently categorized into a new species within the genus Gamma. The HPV88 viral load in an SCC of the index patient exceeded 1 million copies/cell. By contrast, a survey of 447 skin lesions (79 actinic keratoses, 73 seborrhoeic keratoses, 169 basal cell carcinomas and 126 SCCs) and 362 healthy skin biopsies found detectable HPV88 DNA in only 7 specimens. All these had very low viral loads (<1 copy/10(3) cells) implying extreme biological variability in viral load.
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Medical Microbiology, Lund University, University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kullander
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Handisurya
authors.forename: Ola
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Forslund
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Geusau
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kirnbauer
authors.forename: Joakim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dillner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001706:Biopsy; D002280:Basal Cell Carcinoma / Q000821:virology*; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D007642:Keratosis / Q000821:virology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D027383:Papillomaviridae / Q000378:metabolism*; D030361:Papillomavirus Infections / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000821:virology*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000821:virology*; D019562:Viral Load