Why HPV16? Why, now, HPV42? How the discovery of HPV42 in rare cancers provides an opportunity to challenge our understanding about the transition between health and disease for common members of the healthy microbiota.

ABSTRACT: In 2022, a bioinformatic, agnostic approach identified HPV42 as causative agent of a rare cancer, later confirmed experimentally. This unexpected association offers an opportunity to reconsider our understanding about papillomavirus infections and cancers. We have expanded our knowledge about the diversity of papillomaviruses and the diseases they cause. Yet, we still lack answers to fundamental questions, such as what makes HPV16 different from the closely related HPV31 or HPV33; or why the very divergent HPV13 and HPV32 cause focal epithelial hyperplasia, while HPV6 or HPV42 do not, despite their evolutionary relatedness. Certain members of the healthy skin microbiota are associated to rare clinical conditions. We propose that a focus on cellular phenotypes, most often transient and infl

SUBMITTER: Bravo IG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11644485 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature