Vaccines for the control of HPV infection are presently in the process of being released for general use.
The increased incidence and progression of HPV infections in immunosuppressed individuals illustrates the critical importance of the CD4+ T-cell-regulated cell-mediated immune response in the resolution and control of HPV infection 10, 17.
Overall, our data suggest that co-administration of DNA encoding papillomavirus L1 or L2 can be used to enhance antigen-specific CD8+ T cell immune responses generated by therapeutic HPV DNA vaccination for the control of HPV infection and HPV-associated tumors.
Other recent studies looking for HPV-specific T cells in peripheral blood also suggest that helper T cells play a central role in the control of HPV infection, disease regression and clearance (Kadish et al, 2002; de Jong et al, 2004).
The HPV-positive controls consisted of HPV 6 and HPV 11 cloned genomic DNA.
It shows that, in controls, prevalence of HPV 16 and 18 is almost constant (approx. 9%) across different age groups.
This leads us to hypothesise that anatomic differences in immunologic control of HPV-harbouring target cells explains the spectacular differences in risk for HPV-associated malignancies.
Taken together, our data suggest that CRTE6E7L2 DNA vaccine may be appropriate for use in immunocompromised patients, including HIV + patients, to control of HPV-16-associated cancer.
Indeed, we previously found that vaccination with pNGVL4a-hCRTE6E7L2 DNA vaccine was capable of generating HPV neutralizing antibodies as well as control of HPV-16 E6/E7-expressing tumors in a preclinical model [ 21].
It is not known, however, whether successful control of HPV-16 or -18 might not lead to replacement by other oncogenic HPV types, which are highly prevalent in our population as in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (Muñoz et al, 2004).
