The T350G Variation of Human Papillomavirus 16 E6 Gene Prevails in Oropharyngeal Cancer from a Small Cohort of Greek Patients

Abstract

Recent trends have shown a dramatic rise in the incidence of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma strongly associated with high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) of type 16. The genetic variability of HPV16 has been extensively studied in cervical cancer but there are very limited published data concerning the genetic variations of this HPV type in oropharyngeal cancer. In the present study, the genetic variations of HPV16 E6 gene sequences originated from a small cohort of Greek patients diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer were assessed. The vast majority of the sequences clustered within the European variant branch. The T350G variation was found to be the predominant one. This finding may indicate the need for further studies that could explain the possible impact of this variant in the pathomechanisms of oropharyngeal cancer.

Keywords: HPV; Human Papillomavirus; genetic variation; head and neck cancer; type 16.

Figure 1

A Neighbor-Joining (NJ) phylogenetic tree (1000 bootstrap replicates) constructed using Kimura two-parameter correction methods of MEGA X, from the alignment of the HPV16 E6 sequence from sub-lineages A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B2, B3, B4, C1, C3, C4, D1, D2, D3, D4 and HPV16 E6 sequences from the present study.