Tissue-specific gene expression during productive HPV16 infection of cervical, foreskin and tonsil epithelium.

We performed microarray analysis of the effect of productive HPV16 infection in cervical, foreskin and tonsil epithelial trancriptome. Our study for the first time compares and contrast the gene expression changes and differential activation of cellular pathways induced by the virus in the three tissue types. RNA was isolated from 10-day organotypic raft cultures obtained from uninfected and HPV16 infected cervical, foreskin and tonsil keratinocytes. For each tissue type, rafts from the uninfected keratinocytes were used as the control.