The development of larger cells that spontaneously escape senescence--a step during the immortalization of a human cancer cell line.

There are few information concerning the changes associated with the transition interval when slow growing, primary explanted human cancer cells are displaced by new selected faster growing cells and became an immortal cell line. In a previous paper (J. Cell.

Is the human papillomavirus DNA present in penile warts?

Infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) has been established to be a sexually transmitted disease, with a potential risk of intraepithelial neoplasia and invasive cancer, function of the genotype involved. Scraped cells from lesions of 27 men establishing various types of penile warts were investigated by PCR for HPV DNA detection. Twenty patients (76.

Human papillomavirus and human cytomegalovirus DNAs presence in patients suspected of condylomatosis or papillomatosis.

17 samples of total cell DNA isolated from cervical smears from women suspected of condyloma or papilloma were analysed by PCR with appropriate primers, in order to establish the presence of viral DNAs (HPV and/or HCMV). HPV DNA was found in seven cases, and so was for HCMV DNA. Only in three cases a coinfection was present.

Role of human papillomaviruses in the malignant transformation of keratinocytes.

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are considered the main etiological agent of cervical cancer and of its precursory lesions (CIN). The HPV transformation potential consists in the presence of two oncogenes, E6 and E7, which inactivate the tumour-suppressor proteins p53 and pRB of the host cell, inducing uncontrolled transformation and proliferation mechanisms. These effects were demonstrated by in vitro experiments.

Presence of papillomavirus infections in genital lesions of women in Romania.

This study is aimed at establishing the presence of HPV infection in Romania, in women with various benign or malignant anogenital lesions. A number of 76 tissue samples were investigated by nucleic acid hybridization in the dot-blot techniques for identifying the HPVs presence and their serotypes and 35 sera were tested by the immunodot-blot technique in order to detect the presence of antiHPV16 E6 and E7 proteins antibodies. The results obtained suggest the incidence of HPV16 infection is high not only in persons with different tumours or other anogenital lesions (approximately 585), but also in apparently healthy women (3 of 4 cases).