Involvement of human papillomavirus infections in prostate cancer progression

High-risk human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are sexually transmitted and have been associated with several human carcinomas especially cervical and colorectal. On the other hand, a small number of studies have examined the presence of high-risk HPV in human prostate cancer tissues. Currently, the presence and role of high-risk HPV infections in prostate carcinogenesis remain unclear because of the limited number of investigations. This raises the question whether high-risk HPV infections play any role in human prostate cancer development. However, other investigators and our group were able to immortalize normal and cancer prostate epithelial cells in vitro by E6/E7 of HPV type 16. In this paper, we propose the hypothesis that normal and cancer prostate epithelial cells are susceptible to persistent HPV infections; therefore, high-risk HPV infections play an important role in the progression of prostate cancer. We believe that an international collaboration of epidemiological studies and more molecular biology investigations are necessary to answer these important questions.