Genetic variation of high-risk HPV-16 from a cervical cancer biopsy collected in Pakistan

Aim: HPV-16 is one of the causative agents of cervical cancer. The HPV-16 genome is characterized widely to assist mutagenesis studies, phylogenetic analysis and protein annotations. This is the first report of HPV-16 sequence analysis from Pakistan. Materials & methods: The gene and long control region specific primers were used to generate the targeted amplicons that were then cloned and sequenced. Results: The complete genome analysis revealed nine changes both at amino acid and nucleotide level including seven novel and two previously reported mutations. The evolutionary relationship of HPV from Pakistan and reported sequences shows that strain reported in this study segregates with European taxa. Conclusion: This report lays foundation to conduct HPV genome mutation analysis in Pakistan.