Rabbit oral papillomavirus appears best choice for developing HPV vaccine.

2002 DEC 12 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A comparison of animal papillomaviruses to the human variety suggests rabbit oral papillomavirus is best suited for study of the "life cycles of mucosal papillomavirus types and for the development of prophylactic vaccines."

"Animal papillomaviruses are widely used as models to study papillomavirus infection in humans despite differences in genome organization and tissue tropism," noted W.L. Peh and colleagues, National Institute Medical Research, Ridgeway, UK.

Peh's team compared the life cycles of 10 types of papillomavirus to see which most resembled human papillomavirus (HPV) disease.

"Three phases in the life cycles of all viruses were apparent using antibodies that distinguish between early events, the onset of viral genome amplification, and the expression of capsid proteins," the researchers said. "The initiation of these phases follows a highly ordered pattern that appears important for the production of virus particles."

They reported that each type of virus - including canine oral papillomavirus, rabbit oral papillomavirus (ROPV), cottontail rabbit papillomavirus (CRPV), bovine papillomavirus type 1, and human papillomavirus types 1, 2, 11, and 16 - "showed a distinctive gene expression pattern that could be explained in part by differences in tissue tropism, transmission route, and persistence."

"As the timing of life cycle events affects the accessibility ...