Diversity of human papillomaviruses in skin lesions

Pools of frozen biopsies from patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (n=29) actinic keratosis (AK) (n=31), keratoacanthoma (n=91) and swab samples from 84 SCCs and 91 AKs were analysed with an extended HPV general primer PCR and high-throughput sequencing of amplimers. We found 273 different HPV isolates (87 known HPV types, 139 previously known HPV sequences (putative types) and 47 sequences from novel putative HPV types). Among the new sequences, five clustered in genus Betapapillomavirus and 42 in genus Gammapapillomavirus. Resequencing of the three pools between 21 to 70 times resulted in the detection of 283 different known or putative HPV types, with 156 different sequences found in only one of the pools. Type-specific PCRs for 37 putative types from an additional 296 patients found only two of these putative types. In conclusion, skin lesions contain a large diversity of HPV types, but most appeared to be rare infections.