E6-associated transcription patterns in human papilloma virus 16-positive cervical tissues

The change in transcription pattern induced by post-transcriptional RNA splicing is an important mechanism in the regulation of the early gene expression of human papilloma virus (HPV). The present study was conducted to establish a method to specifically amplify HPV-16 E6-associated transcripts. The E6-related transcripts from 63 HPV-16-positive cervical tumor tissue samples were amplified, consisting of eight cases of low-risk intraepithelial lesions, 38 cases of high-risk intraepithelial lesions and 17 cases of cervical cancer (CxCa). The appropriate amplified segments were recovered following agarose gel electrophoresis, and subjected to further sequencing and sequence alignment analysis. Six groups of E6 transcription patterns were identified from HPV-16-positive cervical tumor tissue, including five newly-discovered transcripts. Different HPV-16 E6-associated transcription patterns were detected during the development of CxCa. Over the course of the progression of the low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions to CxCa, the specific HPV-16 E6-associated transcription patterns and the dominant transcripts were all different. As indicated by this study, the transcription pattern of the E6 early gene of HPV-16 was closely associated with the stages of cervical carcinogenesis, and may also be involved in the development of CxCa.