Healthy skin of many animal species harbors papillomaviruses which are closely related to their human counterparts

Abstract

Papillomaviruses associated with clinical symptoms have been found in many vertebrate species. In this study, we have used an L1 gene consensus PCR test designed to detect a broad spectrum of human skin papillomaviruses to analyze swab samples from healthy skin of 111 animals belonging to 19 vertebrate species. In eight of the species, papillomavirus DNA was found with the following prevalences: chimpanzees, 9 of 11 samples positive; gorillas, 3 of 4; long-tailed macaques, 14 of 16; spider monkeys, 2 of 2; ruffed lemurs, 1 of 2; cows, 6 of 10; European elks, 4 of 4; aurochs, 1 of 1. In total, 53 new putative animal papillomavirus types were found. The results show that skin papillomaviruses can be detected in healthy skin from many different animal species and are sufficiently related genetically to their human counterparts to be identified by a human skin papillomavirus primer set (FAP59 and FAP64).

FIG. 1.

Phylogenetic analysis of the fully characterized human skin papillomavirus types and the previously described animal papillomaviruses (both indicated in boldface), together with the 53 putative animal papillomavirus types found in this study. The tree is divided into the previously described supergroups A, B1, B2, C, D, and E, together with the two new tentative groups. The analysis was based on neighbor-joining evaluation of a segment of the L1 gene. The fully characterized HPV types are indicated by their respective numbers only. OvPV, ovine PV; ROPV, rabbit oral PV; CRPV, cottontail rabbit PV; MnPV, Mastomys natalensis PV; COPV, canine oral PV; PCPV-1, pygmy chimpanzee PV type 1; CgPV-2, colobus monkey PV type 2; DPV, deer PV.