Variant analysis of human papillomavirus type 52 in Iranian women during 2018−2020: A case‐control study

Abstract

Abstract Background and Aims Knowing the regional variants of distinct human papillomavirus (HPV) types is valuable as it can be beneficial for studying their epidemiology, pathogenicity, and evolution. For this reason, the sequence variations of the E6 gene of HPV 52 were investigated among women with normal cervical cytology and premalignant/malignant cervical samples. Methods Sixty‐four HPV 52‐positive samples were analyzed using semi‐nested PCR and sequencing. Results Our findings showed that all samples belonged to lineage A (61%) or B (39%). Among samples that were infected with the A lineage, sublineages A1 and A2 were detected and sublineage A1 was dominant. No association was found between lineages and stage of disease (p > 0.05). Conclusion Our results revealed that the A lineage, sublineage A1, and B lineage were common in Iranian women. Nevertheless, more studies with larger sample sizes are required to estimate the pathogenicity risk of HPV 52 lineages in Iranian women with cervical cancer.

Keywords

• cervical cancer
• human papillomavirus
• lineage
• sublineage
• type 52