Kj. Purdie et al., MALIGNANT TRANSFORMATION OF CUTANEOUS LESIONS IN RENAL-ALLOGRAFT PATIENTS - A ROLE FOR HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS, Cancer research, 53(21), 1993, pp. 5328-5333
Renal allograft recipients are at greatly increased risk of developing
squamous cell carcinomas. As these frequently arise adjacent to areas
of multiple viral warts, we have investigated a possible role for hum
an papillomavirus in malignant transformation within this population.
We established, as primary cultures, keratinocytes from 24 lesions of
varying degrees of squamous atypia from 9 patients. Ten of 14 cultures
screened for the presence of episomal human papillomavirus DNA were p
ositive using a mixed probe for cutaneous human papillomaviruses, alth
ough episomal copy was universally lost with continued passage. Three
cultures, 2 of which were derived from malignant tissue and 1 from a b
enign lesion, were positive when screened with a probe for potentially
oncogenic human papillomavirus DNAs 5 or 8. Both positive cultures of
malignant origin exhibited extended lifespan and have been briefly ch
aracterized by morphology and growth requirements.