Detection of specific human papillomavirus types in paraffin-embedded sections of cervical carcinomas.

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) are the causative agents of most cervical carcinomas. A complete understanding of the HPV types that cause cervical carcinoma is needed as vaccines are designed. Fresh tissues are not always available for such studies.

A phase I study to evaluate a human papillomavirus (HPV) type 18 L1 VLP vaccine.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection can cause genital warts and cervical cancer. HPV types 6 and 11 cause >90% of genital wart cases; HPV16 and 18 cause 70% of cervical cancers. A prophylactic HPV (types 6, 11, 16, 18) L1 virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine may substantially reduce the incidence of these lesions.

Effect of vaccine delivery system on the induction of HPV16L1-specific humoral and cell-mediated immune responses in immunized rhesus macaques.

There have been numerous studies to assess the immunogenicity of candidate therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV), but few of them have directly compared different vaccines in an immunologically relevant animal system. In the present study, several vaccine delivery systems (VLPs, chimeric VLPs, plasmid DNA, and a replication incompetent adenoviral vector) expressing HPV16L1 were evaluated for their ability to induce HPV16L1 VLP-specific humoral immune responses, including neutralizing antibodies, and cell-mediated immune responses in rhesus macaques. Monkeys immunized with HPV16L1 VLPs mounted a potent humoral response with strongly neutralizing antibodies and a strong L1-specific Th2 response as measured by IL-4 production by CD4+ T cells.