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. 2020 Aug 17;12(8):899.
doi: 10.3390/v12080899.

Oral Infection by Mucosal and Cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses in the Men Who Have Sex with Men from the OHMAR Study

Tarik Gheit  1 , Francesca Rollo  2 , Rosario N Brancaccio  1 , Alexis Robitaille  1 , Luisa Galati  1 , Massimo Giuliani  3 , Alessandra Latini  3 , Barbara Pichi  4 , Maria Benevolo  2 , Cyrille Cuenin  1 , Sandrine McKay-Chopin  1 , Raul Pellini  4 , Antonio Cristaudo  3 , Aldo Morrone  5 , Massimo Tommasino  1 , Maria Gabriella Donà  3
Affiliations

Oral Infection by Mucosal and Cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses in the Men Who Have Sex with Men from the OHMAR Study

Tarik Gheit et al. Viruses. .

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.

Keywords: HIV; HPV; Human Papillomavirus; MSM; NGS; alpha; beta; cutaneous; gamma; men who have sex with men; mucosal; next generation sequencing; oral rinse and gargle.

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Conflict of interest statement

Maria Benevolo received nonfinancial support from Roche Diagnostics and Hologic S.r.L. and grants and nonfinancial support from Arrow Diagnostics and Becton and Dickinson for work that is not connected with the current study. Where authors are identified as personnel of the International Agency for Research on Cancer/World Health Organization, the authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this article and they do not necessarily represent the decisions, policy, or views of the International Agency for Research on Cancer/World Health Organization. The other authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prevalence of alpha, beta, and gamma HPVs in the oral samples collected from 310 men who have sex with men (MSM), according to HIV status; p values for the comparison between HIV-infected and uninfected subjects are shown.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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