This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Lineage B HPV-52 strain dominates in Asia, rare elsewhere
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Researchers have identified several distinct lineages of HPV-52, with lineage B predominating in Asia and lineage A predominating in Africa, the Americas and Europe, according to a report in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
“HPV-52 is rarely detected in cervical cancers worldwide, but previous studies have found a higher prevalence of this type in Asia,” Paul K.S. Chan, MD, professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, told Infectious Disease News. “We found that HPV-52 strains found worldwide are not the same, and those more commonly found in Asia — the lineage B variant — are associated with a higher risk for cervical neoplasia.”
Chan and colleagues evaluated 611 specimens that tested positive for HPV-52, including cervical and vaginal samples from women and anal samples from men. They performed sequence analysis on the samples and constructed a phylogenetic tree to identify different lineages. They then determined the geographical distribution of the lineages identified.
They identified three closely related lineages (A, B and C) and one distantly related lineage (D). They found that lineage B was most prevalent in Asia, with a prevalence of 89% vs. 0% to 5.5% in other geographic areas. In Africa, the Americas and Europe, the dominant strain was lineage A, which represented 78.6% to 96.8% of the isolates in these areas vs. 5.5% in Asia. Lineage C was uncommon in all regions, and lineage D was rare in Asia, the Americas and Europe.
The researchers conducted multivariate analyses to evaluate the risk for cervical neoplasia associated with the lineages compared with controls with normal cervical cytology. The found that lineage B was associated with a higher risk than lineage A (age-adjusted OR=5.46; 95% CI, 2.28-13.07) and so was lineage C (age-adjusted OR=7.78; 95% CI, 2.26-26.75.). Lineage B was associated with higher risk than lineage C, but this was not significant.
“Women infected with the lineage B variant of HPV-52 may have a higher risk for cervical neoplasia and this should be considered in designing follow-up strategies for cervical screening programs based on HPV type-specific tests,” Chan said.
Chan said the further biological studies should be conducted to verify these findings and to explore the molecular mechanisms accounting for the higher oncogenic risk of HPV-52 lineage B variants. — by Emily Shafer
Disclosure: Chan has received funding and honoraria from GlaxoSmithKline. Other researchers report financial relationships with Aura Biosciences, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Merck Sharp & Dohme, Onco Health Inc., Qiagen and Sanofi Pasteur.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts