Cloning of monomeric human papillomavirus type 16 DNA integrated within cell DNA from a cervical carcinoma

We have molecularly cloned and characterized monomeric human papillomavirus type 16 DNA with flanking cell DNA sequences from a cervical carcinoma. Determination of nucleotide sequence around the junctions of human papillomavirus and cell DNAs revealed that at the site of integration within cell DNA the cloned viral DNA had a deletion between nucleotides 1,284 and 4,471 (numbering system from K. Seedorf, G. Krämmer, M. Dürst, S. Suhai, and W. G. Röwekamp, Virology 145:181-185, 1985), which includes the greater part of E1 gene and the entire E2 gene. In the remaining part of the E1 gene, three guanines were found at the location where two guanines at nucleotides 1,137 and 1,138 have been recorded. This additional guanine shifted the reading frame and erased an interruption in the E1 gene described by Seedorf et al. The data strongly suggest that, like other papillomaviruses, human papillomavirus type 16 has an uninterrupted E1 gene.