Co-incidence of Human Papillomaviruses and Epstein–Barr Virus Is Associated With High to Intermediate Tumor Grade in Human Head and Neck Cancer in Syria

Frontiers in Oncology

Ala-Eddin Al Moustafa¹  Ishita Gupta¹  Hamda Al-Thawadi²  Semir Vranic²  Mohammed I. Malki²  Amber Yasmeen⁴  Lina Ghabreau⁵ 

[1] Biomedical Research Centre, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar;College of Medicine, QU Health, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar;Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Aleppo, Aleppo, Syria;Segal Cancer Centre, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research of the Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC, Canada;Syrian Research Cancer Centre of the Syrian Society Against Cancer, Aleppo, Syria;

关键词: head and neck cancers;    human papillomaviruses;    Epstein–Barr virus;    tumor grade;    Syrian population;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fonc.2020.01016

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

High-risk human papillomaviruses (high-risk HPVs) have been recently reported to be co-present with Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) in different types of human cancers including head and neck (HN), where they can cooperate in the initiation and/or progression of this cancer. Accordingly, we herein explored the prevalence of high-risk HPVs and EBV in 80 HN cancer tissues from the Syrian population using polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemistry, and tissue microarray methodologies. We report that high-risk HPVs and EBV are present in 35/80 (43.7%) and 41/80 (51.2%) of our samples, respectively, and the most frequent HPV types are 33, 16, 18, 45, 52, 58, 35, 51, and 31, in this order. More significantly, our data reveal that 25/80 (31.2%) of cancer cases are positive for high-risk HPVs as well as EBV, and their co-presence is associated with high/intermediate-grade squamous cell carcinomas. These data confirm the co-presence of high-risk HPVs and EBV in HN cancers in the Syrian population of the Middle East and demonstrate that their co-incidence is linked to a more aggressive cancer phenotype. Thus, future studies are required to confirm these data and elucidate the exact role of high-risk and EBV cooperation in human HN carcinogenesis.

【 授权许可】

Unknown