Immunopathogenesis of skin and mucosal Human Papillomavirus (HPV)-related diseases

National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases

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Abstract

We have been investigating the epidemiological and immunological characteristics of HPV skin and anogenital colonization in patients with Idiopathic CD4 lymphopenia (ICL), HIV-1 infected women and man who have sex with man (MSM) as well as patients with different primary immunodeficiencies. We reported on the clinical and immunological characteristics of HPV-related diseases in ICL further complementing our previous work in models of primary immunodeficiencies: The findings of these studies converged in defining the crucial role of lymphoid effector functions (i.e NK and T cells) and specialized epithelial antigen presenting cells (i.e Langerhans cells) in the control HPV-diseases. A new anogenital dysplasia clinic has been launched to align HPV viral epidemiology and epithelial barrier immunity analyses with specialized clinical care for diagnosis and management of aggressive HPV-related diseases. Novel next-generation sequencing tools for HPV genotyping have been integrated with microbiome analysis to identify new correlates of disease progression and in the anogenital compartment of HIV-1 infected individuals.