Analysis of transforming gene regions of human papillomavirus type 16 in normal cervical smears

Exfoliated cells from the uterine cervix of 102 Hungarian women with no cytological abnormality were screened using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16 infection. Twenty-nine patients with histologically confirmed cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) served as reference cases. PCR was performed with 2 different HPV 16 specific oligonucleotide primer pairs flanking a 300 and a 200 base-pair fragment from the early 6 (E6) and early 7 (E7) genes, position 215-514 and 605-805. The specimens exhibited the same proportions of type 16 sequences specific for the tested regions. 8.8% (9/102) of normal samples showed amplification for HPV type 16 E6 and E7 regions, while 48.3% (14/29) of CIN biopsies were positive for the same gene sequences.