Comparison of molecular multiplex assays for the detection of human papillomaviruses from clinical gynecological tissue samples

Abstract

ABSTRACT:  Papillomavirus-associated cervical cancer remains a major disease burden for young women. Therefore, it plays an important role in the pathological diagnosis. Besides cytological and classical pathological methods, molecular biology tests are used for the analysis of HPV status. Here we compare three PCR assays for the detection of human papillomavirus DNA from 50 gynecological samples, namely the HPV Genotyping Kit HPVsign® (Qiagen, Germany), a novel HPV-genotyping kit based on pyrosequencing, the LCD array HPV Type 3.5 (Chipron, Germany) and an in-house PCR of the National Reference Center for Papilloma- and Polyomaviruses at the Institute for Virology of the University Cologne (Germany). The HPVsign assay mainly detected the assumed leading HPV type, while both the in-house PCR and the Chipron HPV Assay 3.5 reproducibly detected single and multiple infections.