Persistence of human papillomavirus infection in sun-exposed skin of healthy individuals from Rosario City, Argentina

ELISA BOLATTI; DIEGO CHOUHY; PABLO E. CASAL; EMMA J. STELLA; ADRIANA SÁNCHEZ; RAMÓN FERNANDEZ BUSSY; ADRIANA A. GIRI

Trieste

Encuentro; ICGEB DNA Tumor Virus Meeting 2015; 2015

ICGEB

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) are small and non-enveloped viruses that infect mucosal and cutaneous epithelia and have been divided into 5 genera (α, β, γ, η, and µ) according to their phylogenetic relationships. Cutaneous HPV are genetically heterogeneous and current knowledge indicates that their infections are favored by sunlight (UV) exposure. In this work we explored the epidemiology of HPV in a high risk area of UV radiation due to ozone depletion. We performed a longitudinal study to analyze the persistence of HPV infection in sun-exposed skin areas (forehead) of 78 healthy individuals (mean age: 39 years, range: 23-63 years; 55 women and 23 men) during 1 year. From each volunteer, 3 swabs samples were collected (spring, summer, and winter). The presence and types of HPV were analyzed using ?hanging-droplet? PCR with 2 primer systems (FAP and CUT-EXTED) and sequencing. Only 8/78 volunteers were negative for the HPV infection during the study, while most (90%, 70/78) were HPV-positive in at least one sample. Among HPV-infected individuals, 27 (35%) harbored HPV DNA in a single sample, 23 (29%) in 2 samples, and 20 (26%) in all 3 samples. Mean age was significantly higher (p