HPV G2G

HPV (human papillomavirus) is the most common sexually transmitted infection. Although most cases are for the most part harmless and the innate immune system can rid the infection, some cases can lead to genital warts or even CANCER!

HPV is spread through sexual skin-skin contact, specifically the interaction between vagina, cervix, vulva, penis or anus, and can even spread to the mouth and throat during oral sex. There are over 200 different types of HPV, 40 of which are spread from the genitals. Other types of HPV cause warts such as the common wart on your hand or the plantar wart on your foot.

Although there is no cure for HPV, there are treatments and vaccinations available to combat this infectious agent. For example, Gardisal 9 can protect against 9 different subtypes of HPV that cause various cancers of the genitalia. However, this vaccination is only effective when given before an individual is sexually active to decrease any risk of contracting the disease.

Recently, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have conducted preclinical experiments to study the effects of repurposed vorinostat, belinostat, and panobinostat to treat HPV. Investigation into the effects of these drugs has been hampered, however, because of the inability to propagate HPV in conventional cell culture because HPV thrives by differentiating the epithelium of the mouth and genitalia into a thick squamous epithelium in which it reactivates its DNA replication. However, Louise Chow and Thomas Broker from the UAB Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics has been able to produce a “raft culture” from human keratinocytes to simulate the progressive activity of the virus.

These scientists hypothesized that drugs that inhibit histone deacetylases (HDACs) would disrupt replication which requires the alteration of histone proteins that wind DNA and package dense chromosomes within the viral genome.

When the drugs vorinostat, belinostat, and panobinostat (all of which inhibit HDACs) not only did it disrupt DNA replication but it also resulted in cell death which could be very beneficial in treating HPV cancers as it battles the overgrowth of these overtaken cells.