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Low viral load of Merkel cell polyomavirus in Iranian patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: Is it clinically important?
Author(s) -
Mohebbi Elham,
Noormohamadi Zahra,
SadeghiRad Habib,
Sadeghi Farzin,
Yahyapour Yousef,
Vaziri Farzam,
Rahimi Ayoub,
Rahimi Jamnani Fatemeh,
Mehrabi Saman,
Siadat Seyed D.,
NooriDaloii Mohammad R.,
Fateh Abolfazl
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.24953
Subject(s) - merkel cell polyomavirus , tongue , merkel cell carcinoma , head and neck squamous cell carcinoma , viral load , virology , biology , cheek , cell , pathology , cancer , virus , head and neck cancer , carcinoma , medicine , anatomy , genetics
Recent studies show that the human Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) may be involved in causing cancer. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of MCPyV on the development of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). In total, 50 paraffin‐embedded HNSCC biopsy samples and 50 adjacent non‐cancerous samples were evaluated for the presence of MCPyV DNA and RNA. Among patients, the five most frequent histopathologic sites were the tongue (22.0%), lip (16.0%), submandibular (14.0%), cheek (14.0%), and throat (14.0%). MCPyV DNA was positive in eight (16.0%) samples. The median MCPyV LT ‐Ag copy number in the eight positive samples and in one non‐cancerous sample was 4.8 × 10 −3 and 2.6 × 10 −5 copies/cell, respectively. Quantification of MCPyV LT ‐Ag revealed increased expression in stage III (5.6 × 10 −3 copies/cell) than in the other stages. The MCPyV DNA load in different stages of HNSCC was also statistically significant ( P = 0.027). The viral load was low, suggesting that only a fraction of cancerous cells is infected. This result provides evidence confirming the presence of MCPyV in a subset of Iranian patients with HNSCCs, but further studies needed to confirm our findings.