Intratumoral Heterogeneity and Clonal Evolution Induced by HPV Integration

The human papillomavirus (HPV) genome is integrated into host DNA in most HPV-positive cancers, but the consequences for chromosomal integrity are unknown. We used continuous long-read sequencing of oropharyngeal cancers and cervical cancer cell lines to resolve structural variation induced by HPV. We discovered a previously undescribed form of structural variation, "heterocateny," characterized by diverse, interrelated, and repetitive patterns of concatemerized virus and host DNA segments within a cancer. ]]>