Presence of human papillomavirus type-16 and type-18 DNA sequences and their expression in cervical cancers and cell lines from Japanese patients.

Southern blot analyses of surgical specimens of cervical carcinoma from Japanese patients showed that 3/9 samples contained human papillomavirus (HPV) type-16 DNA sequences, and 2 contained HPV type-18 DNA sequences. By Northern blot analyses, RNA transcripts of HPV DNA sequences were demonstrated in some of the tissues containing HPV type-16 or HPV type-18 DNA sequences. Two cell lines established from cervical cancers of Japanese patients also contained HPV type-18 genomes and these cell lines contained HPV type-18 transcripts. Two other cervical cancer cell lines from a Japanese patient were found to contain HPV type-16 DNA sequences and their RNA transcripts.