Aim: To study the prevalence and the different types of human papillomavirus (HPV) in patients with oesophageal cancer from a high risk area of South Africa (Transkei). Methods: DNA samples from 50 paraffin wax embedded tissue sections were analysed by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using the degenerate HPV L1 consensus primer pairs MY09/MY11 and GP5+/GP6+. Positive PCR samples were subjected to DNA sequence analysis. Results: HPV DNA was detected in 23 of the 50 samples. Sequence analysis revealed that most patients (11) harboured DNA to HPV type 11, whereas other types included DNA HPV type 39 (seven patients), type 16 (two patients), and type 52 (one patient). HPV type 39 has not previously been shown to be associated with oesophageal cancer. In contrast to earlier studies that have found HPV type 16 to be more frequently associated with oesophageal cancer, HPV type 11 was the predominant subtype in this study. Conclusions:The high frequency of occurrence of HPV in oesophageal tumours (23 of 50 patients; 46%) implicates HPV as one of the possible aetiological factors in this disease. The finding that the low risk HPV subtypes predominate indicates that transformation may be effected via the E6 and E7 proteins.

Several studies have detected human papilloma virus (HPV) DNA in squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus (OSCC). In this study, we analysed OSCC specimens from 114 patients for the presence of HPV DNA, and p53 and p73 expression. HPV DNA was detected in 44.7% of cases, with the low risk HPV11 occurring most frequently. p53 and p73 expression was detected in 70% and 61.4% of cases, respectively. There was no correlation between expression of p53, p73 or HPV infection and tumour grade, or between p53 expression and the presence of HPV DNA. There was, however, significant correlation between p73 expression and the presence of HPV DNA (p<0.01) and p53 and p73 co-expression (p<0.001), as well as co-expression of p53 and p73 with HPV status (p<0.05). These data support previous studies suggesting a role for HPV infection in OSCC and also indicate that HPV infection and p53 and p73 overexpression are not mutually exclusive. In addition, the data implicate a role for p73 in OSCC and suggest a complex interaction between p53, p73 and HPV in the aetiology of the disease.

Oesophageal cancer (OC) is a disease characterized by the development of malignant tumors in the epithelial cells lining the oesophagus. It demonstrates marked ethnic variation, with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) being more prevalent in the Black population and adenocarcinoma (ADC) occurring more often in Caucasians. The etiology of this complex disease has been attributed to a variety of factors, including an excess of iron (resulting in increased tumourigenesis), oesophageal injury and inflammation (due in part to Barrett's oesophagus and smoking among others). The aim of this study was to determine if genetic variations identified in the ceruloplasmin (CP) gene (implicated in iron homeostasis) contribute to OC pathogenesis or susceptibility. The study cohort consisted of 96 unrelated OC patients from the Black Xhosa-speaking South African population and 88 population-matched control individuals. The promoter and coding regions of the CP gene were analyzed for DNA sequence variation using heteroduplex single-strand conformation polymorphism (HEX-SSCP) analysis, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis and semi-automated bidirectional DNA sequencing analysis. Fourteen previously described and four novel variants were identified. Statistically significant associations were revealed for two of the novel variants with OC in this study and could, therefore, potentially contribute to disease susceptibility. In silico analysis of the region of the promoter spanning the identified variants sought to identify putative transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) that could possibly regulate the expression of CP. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine CP with respect to OC in the Black South African population.