HPV Integration Can Drive the Formation of Virus–Host Extrachromosomal DNA in Tumors

Abstract

Human papillomavirus (HPV)–positive cancer cells contain virus and host DNA and exhibit marked genome instability. In this issue of Cancer Discovery, Akagi and colleagues characterize the remarkably complex landscape of virus–host DNA molecules in HPV-positive cells, providing evidence for diverse integrated and extrachromosomal virus–host hybrid DNAs with the potential to drive clonal evolution.