Speaker
Description
Human papillomavirus (HPV) infections drive one in twenty new cancer cases,
exerting a particularly high burden on women. Most anogenital HPV infections are
cleared in less than two years, but the underlying mechanisms that favour persistence
in around 10% of women remain largely unknown. Notwithstanding, it is precisely this
information that is crucial for improving treatment, screening and vaccination
strategies. To understand viral and immune dynamics in non-persisting HPV
infections, we set up an observational longitudinal cohort study with frequent on-site
visits for biological sample collection. We enrolled 189 women aged from 18 to 25 and
living in the area of Montpellier (France) between 2016 and 2020. We performed 974
on-site visits for a total of 1,619 months of follow-up. We collected data on virus load,
local immune cell populations, local concentrations of cytokines, and circulating
antibody titres. Using hierarchical Bayesian statistical modelling to simultaneously
analyse the data from 164 HPV infections from 76 participants, we show that in two
months after infection, HPV viral load in non-persisting infections reaches a plateau
that lasts on average for 13 to 20 months (95% credibility interval) and is then followed
by a rapid clearance phase. This first description of the dynamics of HPV infections
comes with the identification of immune correlates associated with infection clearance,
especially gamma-delta T cells and CXCL10 concentration. A limitation of this first
study on HPV kinetics is that many infection follow-ups are censored. Furthermore,
some immune cell populations are difficult to characterise because vaginal immunity is
less well-characterised than systemic immunity. These results open new perspectives
for understanding the frontier between acute and chronic infections, and for controlling
HPV-associated diseases, as well as for research on human cancers of infectious origin.
| Expedited Notification | No thanks, I do not require Expedited Notification |
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