Abstract

Both mucosal and cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs) can be detected in the oral cavity, but investigations regarding the epidemiology of cutaneous HPVs at this site are scarce. We assessed mucosal (alpha) and cutaneous (beta and gamma) HPV infection in oral samples of HIV-infected and uninfected men who have sex with men (MSM). Oral rinse-and-gargles were collected from 310 MSM. Alpha HPVs were detected using the Linear Array, whereas beta and gamma HPVs were detected using multiplex PCR and Luminex technology. An amplicon-based next-generation sequencing (NGS) protocol was applied to a subset of samples collected from 30 HIV-uninfected and 30 HIV-infected MSM. Beta HPVs were significantly more common than alpha types (53.8% vs. 23.9% for HIV-infected subjects, p < 0.0001; 50.3% vs. 17.1% for HIV-uninfected subjects, p < 0.0001). Gamma HPVs were also frequently detected (30.8% and 25.9% in HIV-infected and uninfected MSM, respectively). NGS produced 2,620,725 reads representative of 146 known HPVs (16 alpha-PVs, 53 beta-PVs, 76 gamma-PVs, one unclassified) and eight putative new HPVs, taxonomically assigned to the beta genus. The oral cavity contains a wide spectrum of HPVs, with beta types representing the predominant genus. The prevalence of beta and gamma HPVs is high even in immunorestored HIV-infected individuals. NGS confirmed the abundance of cutaneous HPVs and identified some putative novel beta HPVs. This study confirms that cutaneous HPVs are frequently present at mucosal sites and highlights that their pathological role deserves further investigation since it may not be limited to skin lesions.

Highlights

  • Recent studies indicated that cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs), which mainly belong to the beta and gamma genera, can be found in mucosal epithelia

  • This study investigated the presence of a wide spectrum of mucosal and cutaneous HPVs in oral samples of HIV-infected and uninfected men who have sex with men (MSM)

  • Our study evidenced that a wide spectrum of HPV types can be detected in oral samples of MSM and that beta HPVs represent the most abundant types, exceeding the prevalence of both alpha and gamma HPVs

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Summary

Introduction

Recent studies indicated that cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs), which mainly belong to the beta and gamma genera, can be found in mucosal epithelia. They can be detected in the anal canal [1,2,3], nasal mucosa [4], and oral cavity [5,6,7]. Beta HPVs have been detected across multiple cutaneous and mucosal sites of the same subjects, the concordance across the different sites was generally low, especially between the oral and ano-genital ones [8]. Frequency of HPV oral infection in this study was low, especially compared to other mucosal sites, and alpha

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