HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS AND BREAST CANCER

Giles Davies

An update on research progress

BREAST CANCER

Most prevalent type of Cancer amongst

women

Second leading cause of cancer related

deaths

Multiple risk factors associated with Breast

Cancer

No specific cause for up to 80% of the cases

Incidents rising, urgent prevention or cure

needed

HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS (HPV)

HPV is from the family of papillomaviruses

Discovered by Prof Zur-Hausen in genital

warts in 1976

High Risk HPV infection is accountable for

over 90% of Cervical cancer cases

HPV also associated with other cancers such

as genital, skin, lung, oral cancers and more

recently with Cardiovascular disease!

HPV Grouped according to their physiological and

biological similarities

A1 – A15 (A5, A6, A7, A9 & A11 are carcinogenic)

Species A7 includes HR HPV types 18, 56, 66,

39, 45, 59, 68 and 70

Species A9 includes HR HPV types 16, 31, 33,

35, 52, 58, and 67

Further divided into high risk (HR) and low risk

(LR) HPV types

HR HPV are carcinogenic – malignant lesions

LR HPV associated with warts - benign lesions.

Vaccines for HPV types 16, 18 (11, 6)

HPV IN BREAST TISSUE - OUR STUDY

Aim: to determine the presence of HPV in normal,

benign and malignant breast tissue

HPV discovered in Breast tissue from other

research-controversial results

Most research carried out on paraffin embedded

samples – poor quality DNA

Most research studies focused only on HPV types

16 and 18

No HPV in Breast Cancer research from UK

SAMPLES COLLECTED AND PROCESSED SO FAR

50 fresh tissue samples collected from

Kingston Hospital

Fresh tissue protected in Allprotect

reagent

DNA, RNA and Protein extracted from 30

samples - disruption & homogenization

easier using TissueLyser

PCR and Gel Electrophoresis carried out

on 30 samples

AmpliSens HPV HCR genotype-Eph PCR

kit used, targets HPV 16, 31, 33, 35, 18,

39, 45, 59, 52, 56, 58, 88

HPV TYPES DETECTED IN SAMPLES

Sample HPV 16 HPV 31 HPV 33 HPV35 HPV 18 HPV 39 HPV45 HPV 59

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

69

71

72

73

75

76

GEL ELECTROPHORESIS IMAGES

340bp

475 bp395 bp

723 bp

GEL ELECTROPHORESIS IMAGES

340bp

425 bp

395 bp

723 bp

PREVALENCE OF HPV TYPES

HPV 16 = 0

HPV 31 = 20%

HPV 33 = 0

HPV35 = 20%

HPV 18 = 26%

HPV 39 = 46%

HPV45 = 40%

HPV 59 = 46%

So far 62% HPV detected in 24 patients

CONCLUSIONS

So far HPV discovered in a high number of patients

86% of patients with HPV have multiple infections

Most prevalent HR HPV types 39, 59 and 45 which are similar to

HPV 18

Very low prevalence of vaccine HR HPV types (18 and 16)

FUTURE WORK

More samples required

Why HPV present in breast tissue?

How HPV entered the breast tissue?

Is HPV associated with Breast Cancer?

Presence of HPV in protein