Association of E6 gene expression of high risk human papillomaviruse HPV 18 in patients with Cervical squamous cell dysplasia and Cancerous Lesions

Background and Aims: Cervical cancer is among leading causes of cancer related death in women and human papilloma virus (HPV) is one of the important risk factor of this cancer. The aim of the present study was to develop a PCR method for identification of a high carcinogenic type of HPV, HPV 18 using E6 gene as a marker in patients with cervical cancer Materials and Methods: 92 Formalin-Fix (FF) and Paraffin-Embedded (PE) tissues of premalignant and malignant lesions from cervical cancer patients were collected. DNA was extorted followed by PCR application in two steps using L1 and E6 consensus primers. Results: Infection with HPV was observed in 68(73.91%) out of 92 samples by L1 region consensus primers, while 18 (26.47%) positive cases were detected to be HPV 18 using E6 type specific primer. Six of them were CINII and CINIII, and 12 cases were diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that the assessment of HPV18 using E6 gene with a specific PCR can help in identification of high carcinogenic genotypes of HPV. Further studies are needed to assess the value of this method in a larger multicenter setting for establishing their values for early detection of cervical cancer patients.