Human Papillomavirus Type 56: a New Virus Detected in Cervical Cancers

Summary A new human papillomavirus type (HPV-56) was identified by low stringency Southern blot analysis with an HPV-31 DNA probe, in a cervical intraepithelial neoplasm (CIN). The DNA of this virus was molecularly cloned and shown to be a new HPV type based on the absence of cross-reactivity to HPV types 1 to 55 under high-stringency hybridization conditions. At low stringency, HPV-56 was most related to HPV types 30 and 45. The deduced organization of the open reading frames of HPV-56, from hybridization and partial nucleotide sequence analyses, reveals a typical HPV genome. HPV-56 was detected in two of 464 normal cervical tissues, in five of 227 cervical condylomas and CIN, and in two of 84 invasive cancers of the cervix.