Genomic Profiles of HPV Positive and Negative Cancer of the H&N

Michael J. LaMastra wrote this book based on his research while attending Roswell Park Cancer Institute for his first masters degree. While we knew that HPV-associated head and neck cancer was different from tobacco/alcohol related head and neck cancer, we did not know why. The answer was genomic instability. Human Papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) has been shown to be an independent etiologic agent, with virus-positive tumors exhibiting better prognoses.This study aimed to determine if there are quantitative and/or qualitative differences in the genomic instability patterns of HPV-16 positive and HPV-16 negative head and neck cancer. Mutational analyses of a small number of genes suggest that HPV-16 positive tumors may have different genomic alterations than HPV-16 negative tumors.For this study, DNA from head and neck cancers were collected at RPCI and subjected to PCR using oligonucleotides specific for the HPV-16 E6 gene. These samples underwent further analysis by array CGH which was performed in collaboration with the Microarray Facility at RPCI.