Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 19
Human Papillomavirus Type 16 Capsid
Proteins: Immunogenicity and Possible
Use as Prophylactic Vaccine Antigens
Tadahito Kanda
*
,†
, Kei Kawana
‡
and Hiroyuki Yoshikawa
§
Human papillomavirus 16 (HPV16), a small non-enveloped DNA virus, is
one of the HPV types that causes cervical cancer, accounting for 50% of the
cases. Although cell cultures allowing HPV16 propagation are not available,
surrogate systems can provide the HPV16 capsids and infectious pseudoviri-
ons, which have facilitated the biological and immunological studies of cap-
sid proteins. HPV16 major capsid protein L1 and minor capsid protein L2
are supposed to be involved in the attachment to the cell surface and the
intracellular transport, respectively, in the viral infection. L1 and L2 seem to
elicit type-specific and type-common, respectively, neutralizing antibodies.
A recent clinical trial in the United States
1
strongly suggests that HPV16
L1-capsids can serve as a prophylactic vaccine against HPV16 infections,
some of which would progress to malignancy. Studies are underway on the
possible use of L2 for a vaccine against multiple mucosal HPVs.
*Corresponding author.
†
Division of Molecular Genetics, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 1-23-1 Toyama,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8640, Japan, E-mail: kanda@nih.go.in
‡
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku,
Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
§
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennoudai, Tsukuba-
shi, Ibaraki 305-8575, Japan.
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