Human papilloma viruses (HPV): Characterization of four different isolates

Abstract

Out of 50 papilloma virus isolates from individual human warts (verrucae vulgares and verrucae plantares) 36 were analyzed for cleavage pattern of their DNA after restriction enzyme digestion with the endonucleases EcoRl, BamHI, Hind II, Hind III, Hpa II, and Hae III. Furthermore, the electrophoretic mobility of virion proteins from some of the same as well as from the additional isolates was studied by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Four different cleavage patterns were observed: While three individual isolates (HPV 1, HPV 2, HPV 3) had many cleavage sites in common, and differed only in a few sites, a fourth one (HPV 4) was found to be entirely different. The electrophoretic mobility of proteins of HPV 4 was also observed to differ from those of HPV 1-3. cRNA transcribed either from HPV 1 or HPV 4 did not hybridize with the heterologous isolate. Rabbit antiserum reacting highly against HPV 1 did not react with HPV 4 proteins in complement fixation tests. We thus conclude that several human papilloma viruses exist: While HPV 1-3 are closely related isolates, HPV 4 represents a new human papilloma virus, profoundly different from the previous ones as far as base composition and antigenicity are concerned. Preliminary data suggest that the latter type occurs in approximately 20% of verrucae vulgares with low virus production, whereas HPV 1, representative for about 70% of these papillomas, predominates in warts with high virus yields. © 1977.