Development of reference materials to detect 15 different human papillomavirus genotypes

Accurate human papillomavirus (HPV) typing is essential for evaluating and monitoring HPV vaccines in cervical cancer screening and in epidemiological surveys. In our country, different HPV DNA detection and genotyping methodologies have been established for diagnosing and monitoring HPV-related disease in clinical practice and for research. However, there is a lack of reference materials to standardize the methods for HPV detection and genotyping. In this study, we constructed candidate reference materials comprising 15 targets (13 types of high-risk HPV, two types of low-risk HPV). We evaluated whether the candidate reference materials could be used as the reference for HPV detection and genotyping using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Standard curves for the wide linear range (101-106 copies/μL) produced high correlation regression coefficient R2 of 0.99. The reaction efficiencies were 96.3% to 101.2% for the standard curves, indicating highly efficient reactions. Specific genotypes were detected in single or multiple mixed samples. Our results suggest that these reference materials may provide useful standards for standardizing quality assurance for different HPV-typing assays and for proficiency testing in diagnostic laboratories.