Clinical and epidemiological correlates of antibody response to human papillomaviruses (HPVs) as measured by a novel ELISA based on denatured recombinant HPV16 late (L) and early (E) antigens

Colomba Giorgi¹ , Paola Di Bonito¹ , Felicia Grasso¹ , Stefania Mochi¹ , Luisa Accardi¹ , Maria Gabriella Donà¹ , Margherita Branca² , Silvano Costa³ , Luciano Mariani⁴ , Alberto Agarossi⁵ , Marco Ciotti⁶ and Kari Syrjänen⁷ for the HPV-PathogenISS group.

¹Department of Infectious, Parasitic and Immunomediated Diseases, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, Italy

²Unità Citoistopatologia, Centro Nazionale di Epidemiologia, Sorveglianza e Promozione della Salute, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, Italy

³Dipartimento di Ginecologia e Ostetricia, Ospedale S. Orsola Malpighi, Bologna, Italy

⁴Clinica Ostetrica e Ginecologica, IFO, Istituto Regina Elena, Roma, Italy

⁵Istituto Scienze Biomediche, Ospedale Luigi Sacco, Milano, Italy

⁶Laboratory of Clinical Microbiology and Virology, Policlinico of Tor Vergata University, Rome, Italy

⁷Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy, Turku University Hospital, FIN-20521 Turku, Finland

author email corresponding author email

Infectious Agents and Cancer 2008, 3:9doi:10.1186/1750-9378-3-9


Published:	26 June 2008

Abstract

Background

At present, seroreactivity is not a valuable parameter for diagnosis of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection but, it is potentially valuable as marker of viral exposure in elucidating the natural history of this infection. More data are needed to asses the clinical relevance of serological response to HPV.

Objectives

The objective was to assess the clinical and epidemiological correlates of HPV-seroreactivity in a cohort of HIV-negative and HIV-positive women.

Methods

Seroreactivity of 96 women, evaluated in an ELISA test based on denatured HPV16 late (L) and early (E) antigens, was correlated with their clinical and epidemiological data previously collected for a multi-centre Italian study, HPV-PathogenISS study.

Results

No significant correlation was found between HPV DNA detection and seroreactivity. Women, current smokers showed significantly less seroreactivity to L antigens as compared with the non-smokers. HIV-positive women showed significantly less (66.7%) antibody response as compared with HIV-negative women (89.3%), with particularly impaired response to L antigens. Women, HIV-positive and current smokers, showed by far the lowest seroprevalence (33.3%) as compared to 75.9% among all other women (OR = 0.158; 95%CI 0.036–0.695, p = 0.014; Fisher's exact test). Importantly, this association did not loose its significance when controlled for confounding from age (continuous variable) in multivariate analysis or using Mantel-Haenszel test for age-groups.

Conclusion

It is tempting to speculate that HIV-positive current smokers comprise a special high-risk group, with highly impaired immunological response that could prevent eradication of persistent HPV infections and thus contribute to development of CIN3/CC.