Molecular Detection of Human Papillomavirus DNA in Oral Lichen Planus Patients

Abstract

Introduction: Oral Lichen Planus (OLP) is a chronic inflammatory disease with cell mediated immunopathologic response. Even though OLP has been studied widely for decades, the aetiology of the disease is yet not hypothesised exactly. Autoimmunity, viruses like Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), Human Papillomavirus (HPV), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV), Candida albicans and stress have been hypothesised in recent articles. The fact that there is paucity of studies on the aetiopathogenesis of oral lichen planus pivoted the study to analyse the presence of HPV in OLP. Aim: The aim of this study is to detect the presence of HPV DNA in the biopsy samples of OLP and also to determine the role played by the virus in aetiopathogenesis of OLP. Materials and Methods: Biopsy samples comprising 15 Oral Lichen Planus tissues and 15 normal buccal mucosa tissues embedded in paraffin blocks were collected from different dental colleges located in Telangana erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. Parameters like age, sex, site of lesions, type of lesion were also compared. The DNA was extracted from the fixed tissue by using modified protocol and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was performed by using general primers to amplify HPV L1 gene. On comparison of sequences of 10 patients by using Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST), the sequences were found similar to HPV-18 L1 gene. Results: Thirteen out of 15 (86.6%) lichen planus cases and none out of 15 controls were HPV 18 positive. Compared between males and females and controls significant relation was observed between sex and OLP too. However, no significant relation was observed based on the site of the lesion and based on type of lesion. Conclusion: The molecular studies confirm presence of HPV18 in OLP tissues of 13 patients with 8 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) indicating probably new variant of HPV18 in Indian patients.

Keywords

• autoimmunity
• chronic inflammatory disease
• oncogenic potential
• polymerase chain reaction