The human papillomavirus is something that most people have only heard about recently. However, it is a virus which has been around for over 100 years.
As early as 1842 a doctor in Florence, Italy, made note of the fact that married women died of cervical cancer yet nuns did not. He therefore postulated that whatever caused the disease must be sexually transmitted.
So why no one has been familiar with HPV as a sexually transmitted infection until recently is the question.
Much of this has to do with technology. In the 1970s, Prof. Harald zur Hausen, a German researcher, developed a theory. He believed that HPV was responsible for cervical cancer but that it would not be easily found. He believed that HPV, which had long been known to be a virus, would remain dormant within the cells themselves and could become active at a later point in time.
Thus he began his search for the HPV DNA. He labored for over 10 years unable to find what he had been looking for. With the development of DNA amplification, a process by which the DNA can be multiplied, which renders a much greater sample, he was able to determine the first HPV type present in cervical cancer specimens. This was HPV16.
DNA amplification is to modern biochemistry what the printing press would be to the written word. The process itself allows for a single strand of DNA to be combined with various other agents. It is then repeatedly heated and cooled and results in two identical DNA strands. Continuing this process allows for the DNA to be reproduced exponentially so that within about an hour, 20 cycles can multiply the initial target DNA a million-fold. Obviously this allows for easier identification than efforts to search for one single strand of DNA.
Within the human body we all have what are referred to as tumor suppressor proteins. These proteins actually act to prevent the development of cancer, or they should. However, in the case of HPV, it too has proteins referred to as oncogenes or cancer causing. The two main proteins are E6 and E7.
Continued research lead to the discovery that the E6 protein would inhibit the body’s p53 protein and E7 would disable the human protein known as pRb (retinoblastoma protein). Between the two, they effectively shut off the body’s own tumor suppressor proteins. This is one of the main reasons, in addition to its ability to go dormant for long periods of time, that HPV can remain undiscovered until more serious symptoms present themselves.
Fortunately the first HPV test was developed approximately 10 years ago which allows doctors to test for the specific HPV DNA which are considered high risk for causing cancer in addition to some low risk strains as well. Technology marches on and hopefully in the near future scientists will discover a way to determine which women are more likely to develop cancer than others.
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/publicat/primer/pcr.html
“E7 Protein HPV and Cervical Cancer”, Science News. 24 March 2008. Web. 23 June 2009.
“Radiation-Enhanced Expression of E6/E7 Transforming Oncogenes of Human Papillomavirus-16 in Human Cervical Cancer”, Medline Web. 28 June 2009.
Bonnie Diraimondo is an RN, and considered an expert in HPV. She maintains a website, thehpvsupportnetwork.org, to help inform others about HPV.