Identification of three distinct papillomavirus genomes in a single patient with epidermodysplasia verruciformis

Benign papillomas from a patient with a family history of epidermodysplasia verruciformis were examined for the presence of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA. Employing stringent hybridization conditions that allow identification of a single type of HPV and radioactively labeled HPV-5 DNA as a probe, we have detected HPV DNA exhibiting sequence homology to HPV-5 in these tumors. Restriction endonuclease analysis of this HPV DNA confirmed its identity as HPV type 5. However, when hybridization was performed under less stringent conditions that allow all of the known types of HPV to react with the radioactively labeled HPV-5 DNA probe, two additional species of HPV DNA unrelated to HPV-5 were identified. As these two HPV types do not hybridize with HPV 1, 2, 3, or 4 under stringent conditions, they appear unique and have, as yet, not been reported to be associated with patients exhibiting epidermodysplasia verruciformis. Thus we have observed three distinct HPV species in benign papillomas from a single patient. These observations have important implications when attempting to correlate the type of HPV present in the various wart disease syndromes that have been described to date and further suggest that extreme care must be taken when analyzing carcinomas, occupying similar anatomic sites and suspected to have arisen from papillomas, for HPV species.