Novel betapapillomavirus associated with hand and foot papillomas in a cynomolgus macaque

Betapapillomavirus is a genus of papillomaviruses (PVs) commonly found in human skin and associated with both benign and malignant skin lesions. Only 2 previous beta-PVs have been fully characterized in nonhuman species. This report describes a novel beta-PV, named Macaca fascicularis PV type 2 (MfPV2), isolated from exophytic skin papillomas on the hands and feet of a 2-year-old male cynomolgus monkey (M. fascicularis). On histology the papillomas were composed of diffusely thickened epidermis with superficial foci of cytomegaly, cytoplasmic pallor, marginalized chromatin, and rare eosinophilic intranuclear inclusion bodies. Positive immunostaining for p16 and the proliferation marker Ki67 was present multifocally within affected epidermis, most prominently within basal-type cells. Complete sequence identity (100%) was noted between PV genomes fully sequenced from hand and foot lesions. The MfPV2 genome was 7632 base pairs in length and included putative open reading frames (ORFs) for E1, E2, E4, E6, E7, L1, and L2 genes, similar to other PVs. The closest relatives to MfPV2 based on the L1 ORF sequence were all beta-PVs. These included human PV (HPV) 9, HPV115, HPV76, HPV75, and MfPV1 (60-70% pairwise identity for all), the latter of which was also isolated from hand and foot papillomas in a cynomolgus macaque. Phylogenetic analysis placed MfPV2 in a new species group (beta-6), distinct from HPVs (beta-1 to beta-5) and MfPV1 (beta-1). These findings characterize a new nonhuman beta-PV and provide additional support for the idea that tissue tropism among ancestral primate PVs developed prior to divergence of certain Old World primate lineages.