Prevalence of Merkel Cell Polyomavirus (Mcpyv) in the Oral Cavity Biopsies in Northern Iran Publisher Pubmed



Estalkhi MH¹ ; Majidi MS¹ ; Sadeghi F² ; Chehrazi M³ ; Zebardast A⁴ ; Hasanzadeh A⁵ ; Yahyapour Y⁶ Show Affiliations
Source: Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention Published:2021

Abstract

Objective: Infection with human tumor viruses is one of the hypothesized causes of cancer. The current investigation aimed to explore the presence and quantitative analysis of a new human tumor virus, Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV)in tissue samples of 114 patients with oral cavity lesions including oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), oral lichenplanus (OLP), Dysplasia and oral irritation fibroma (OIF) in Northern Iran. Methods: From 114 formalin fixed paraffinembedded samples; 35 with SCC, 29 with OLP, 14 with dysplasia and 36 with OIF were cut, deparaffinized and DNAwas extracted. Quantitative detection of MCPyV large T antigen was performed by absolute quantitative Real-TimePCR. Result: MCPyV DNA was detected in 30.6% (n: 11/36) of IF, 24.1% (n; 7/29) of OLP, 21.4% (n:3/14) of dysplasiaand 20% (n;7/35) of OSCC samples. The mean MCPyV DNA copy number was 2.32×10−2 ± 3.97 ×10−2, 2.02×10−2(SD=3.13×10−2), 2.69×10−4(SD=2.51×10−4), and 2.56×10−4 (SD=6.73×10−4) per cell in OSCC, dysplasia and both ofOLP and OIF samples, respectively (P=0.76). Conclusion: This study provides the first data from Iran regarding thepresence of MCPyV genome in oral cavity lesions and oral cancer. These results also emphasize that MCPyV has anactive role in the occurrence of oral lesions and progression to cancer. Further studies should be carried out to clarifythe role of MCPyV in oral cavity lesions © This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License