Understanding the role of the chromatin insulator CTCF in human papillomavirus gene expression and disease progression

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Viral infections are estimated to cause over 1 in 10 of all cancers, resulting in over 1.3 million deaths a year, worldwide. Human papillomavirus (HPV) infections cause almost half of these cancers, including cancer of the uterine cervix, genitals and in the mouth and throat. While this causal link between HPV and the development of cancer is well established, the specific changes that occur in HPV infections that drive the formation of HPV tumours are not well understood. Thus, it is important to understand these changes so that new therapies to treat HPV infections and cancer, and diagnostic tools for early disease detection, can be developed. Our work has shown that a host cell protein, CTCF, binds to the HPV genome and limits production of viral proteins that cause increased host cell growth and cancer development. Therefore, we hypothesize that in normal HPV infections CTCF is a key regulator of viral gene expression and works to allow the virus to complete the infectious cycle and produce new virus. We predict that the control of HPV-induced cell growth by CTCF is lost in HPV-driven cancers. The experiments described in this proposal are designed to answer long-standing questions about how the virus behaves in a normal infection and how this novel virus-host interaction contributes to virus productivity. Using clinical samples of HPV-associated disease, we will also explore how this virus-host interaction is disrupted in HPV-driven cancer.