Prevalence of novel gamma HPV types 223 and 225 in oral cavity and skin of Indian normal and neoplastic participants

Gamma-papillomaviruses, though traditionally classified as cutaneotropic, actual tissue tropism is largely unexplored. This study aimed to evaluate the tissue-specific prevalence of two novel-HPV 223 and 225 in samples of oral mucosa and keratinized epithelium of varied skin parts from 226 female and male subjects, with or without neoplastic/dysplastic lesions in oral cavity or cervix. The gamma-human papillomavirus (gamma-HPV) 223 and 225 DNA presences were determined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) ursing the HPV type-specific primers and confirmed by Sanger sequencing. Viral load in the HPV 223 and HPV 225 positive samples were determined by absolute real-time quantification method. Alpha-HPV DNA prevalence was also checked in oral mucosa to ascertain coinfection status. Novel HPV 223 was present in 4.4% (10/226) oral mucosal samples of the study population; interestingly all were females with no prevalence in their corresponding skin swab samples. Whereas, the prevalence of HPV 225 was found both in the skin and oral mucosa of 28.2% (N = 37/131) female and 17.9% (N = 17/95) male participants. Alongside, HPV 223 viral load was found to be significantly higher (p = 0.02 < 0.05) in the oral mucosa of diseased participants, whereas, HPV 225 viral load was higher in the oral mucosa of normal participants. Our results suggest that gamma-HPV 223 has its prevalence only in the oral mucosal epithelium, whereas, HPV 225 has its prevalence on both mucosal and keratinized skin epithelium, indicating its dual tropism nature.