Development and Validation of a Method for Human Papillomavirus Genotyping Based on Molecular Beacon Probes

Abstract

We describe a new assay system for the genotyping of human papillomavirus (HPV) based on linear-after-the-exponential-PCR and melting curve analysis. This system can detect and identify the 23 most common HPV strains (types 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39,42, 45, 51, 52, 53, 56, 58, 59, 66, 68, 70, 73, 81, 82, and 83) in two sealed reaction tubes within 2 h. The sensitivity and specificity of this new system was validated using cloned HPV DNA and clinical samples. The detection limit was 5-500 copies/reaction depending on the genotype, and no cross-reactivity was observed with any other low-risk HPV or pathogen that was commonly found in the female genital tract. When compared with the HPV GenoArray test kit, the testing of 1104 clinical samples produced a good overall agreement between the two methods of 98.37% (95% CI: 97.44%-98.97%) and a kappa value of 0.954. Thus, this new HPV genotyping assay system represents a simple, rapid, universally applicable, sensitive, and highly specific detection methodology that should be useful for cervical lesion screening and, thus, is potentially of great value in future clinical applications.